Risk and Trust in the Pandemic

 We have been socializing with another couple every week. All of us have been self-quarantined, so little to no risk. The other couple attended a family function this past weekend with their two children, their spouses, and three grandchildren. We will not be socializing with the couple for a couple of weeks to minimize our risk of exposure to Covid-19. We were ok with the risk of exposure before—two people who were seeing two people who were all social distancing and self-quarantined. The socialization risk factor has increased by several hundred percent. If we were to socialize, we would be extending our trust to four additional adults and three children.

We have no idea how many people those seven have been exposed to. If it is only 2 people each, potentially, we risk exposure to a minimum of 21 additional people. In a state where the infection rate is 10% or more, two of the 21 people probably have the virus. Since my wife and I are in a high-risk group, this is more risk than I am willing to take. If each of the seven additional people has been exposed to 4 other people, we would be extending trust to 35 people. There are likely at least 3 infected people in the group. When people meet in groups, without social distancing, they are significantly increasing their risk of infection. Yet, we continue to see people that refuse to wear a mask and ignore social distancing rules. I don’t think we will stop the pandemic until we have a vaccine that works, and enough people have received the vaccine. With 25% of the population saying that they will not get vaccinated, we may never end the pandemic.