Diversity, Distance, Duration

Risk ranking of everyday activities for COVID-19, according to an infectious-disease expert

Staying safe from COVID-19 doesn't require isolating in a bunker, but it does mean weighing different risks based on the situation. You can think about everyday activities in terms of the three D's: diversity, distance, and duration. Diversity is the number of households mixing. So risk is higher if you're meeting with people you don't live with, particularly if you don't know everywhere they've been in the past two weeks. It's also higher if your area has had lots of recent cases or if testing is too limited to know how many active carriers are around. Distance is an issue whenever you're less than six feet from other people, especially if you're indoors or people aren't wearing masks. Lastly, it comes down to duration. Are you running past people in the park, or are you having an extended conversation or encounter?
- Dr. Susan Hassig associate professor of epidemiology.