1/ On the issue of whether you need to mask outdoors, folks are conflating population attributable risk (the % of disease due to an exposure) with individual risk of disease from an exposure.
2/ @VauseCNN's skydiving analogy is a fairly good one. Not many people die from skydiving accidents per year, but skydiving is a high-risk activity.
3/ But the analogy isn't perfect because you can't transmit skydiving disease & death. In calculating population attributable risk, we should also take into account that SARS-CoV-2 is transmissible.
4/ Population attributable risk calculation should, therefore, also take into account those who come into contact with people who go unmasked outdoors. Those subsequent contacts could be indoors or outdoors.
5/ Large gatherings do seem to be associated with transmission of SARS-CoV-2 outdoors:
nytimes.com/2021/05/10/wor…
nytimes.com/2020/10/31/us/…
But it's hard to prove without rigorous contact tracing, and there may be both indoor & outdoor exposures at these gatherings.
nytimes.com/2021/05/10/wor…
nytimes.com/2020/10/31/us/…
But it's hard to prove without rigorous contact tracing, and there may be both indoor & outdoor exposures at these gatherings.
6/ What's a crowd?
To quote SCOTUS Justice Potter Stewart on what is obscenity:
"I know it when I see it."
To quote SCOTUS Justice Potter Stewart on what is obscenity:
"I know it when I see it."
7/ That all said, let's make this easy.
If you're vaccinated + outdoors + unmasked
AND
you avoid large gatherings and crowds (e.g. concerts, sporting events, festivals, political rallies),
your risk and the risk to others are miniscule.
If you're vaccinated + outdoors + unmasked
AND
you avoid large gatherings and crowds (e.g. concerts, sporting events, festivals, political rallies),
your risk and the risk to others are miniscule.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
