So You Want to Host a Geocaching Event...

Part of the joy of geocaching is meeting with friends who also geocache.  In times of COVID that means risk.  A team at Georgia Tech as put together a tool to help people determine just how great that risk can be.  Since we primarily live in northeast Ohio and fifty people attend the event, the risk that one attendee will be COVID positive is...

67% in Cuyahoga County.

37% in Lake County

35% in Summit County

34% in Lorain County

31% in Medina County

25% in Portage County

25% in Stark County

23% in Geauga County

That's great!  Look at how much safer an event in Geauga County is than one in Cuyahoga County...  maybe.  Remember, geocaching events are open to everyone so an event in any county will most likely be blended with all those counties by the attendees.  It might even have an attendee from Huron County where the risk of a COVID-positive attendee would be 56%.  Maybe one of the attendees recently visited the Lake Erie Islands for some summer fun.  The risk in Ottawa County is 68%.

Now, just think if your event were being held in Kentucky...  and maybe 500 people were expected to attend.  The entire area around Daviees County shows a 99% risk that at least 1 attendee will be COVID-positive.

Actually, when the map zooms out a good portion of the eastern US shows a gathering of 500 people would virtually be assured of at least 1 attendee who is COVID-positive.

It makes one wonder how big an ego one must have to try pushing an event to a mega in the time of a pandemic...

I am saddened to see so little regard not just for the geocachers attending, but for their families who will be put at risk, the exhausted medical community that might be needed to find even more to offer to serve geocachers who might become sick.

This year's play appears to be a part of a ploy to get the next GeoWoodstock.