Research: New tools help assess COVID-19 risks
Are you more likely to die from COVID-19 or in a car accident? A new risk assessment tool can help you figure that out.
Created by assistant professor Cameron Byerley, the online tool is called COVID-Taser, and it allows users to adjust age, vaccine status, and health background to predict the risks of the virus.
Byerley, who teaches in the Department of Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies Education, said that most people assess risk based on their experience of the world.
“Like if you’re trying to decide how dangerous it is to drive, you might think about how out of all your friends and all your family members, you know two people who died of driving in the past 20 years. So, it’s risky enough that you should wear a seatbelt and drive sober, but it’s not so risky that you shouldn’t drive to a friend’s house.”