How safe is my office? How does the risk of infection change if I ventilate regularly? And does the type of mouth-nose protection really make that much difference? There is a lot of uncertainty about the risk of infection from Covid19. With the Covid19 risk calculator (CRR for short) from the publisher BurdaForward (including FOCUS Online, CHIP.de, TV SPIELFILM and BUNTE.de), users can now individually calculate how high their risk of infection is.
Smear or droplet infections can be well prevented by the AHA rules - keep your distance, observe hygiene and wear mouth-nose protection. But these measures are only of limited help in preventing infection via aerosols. These spread around the room within a very short time and are inhaled unnoticed by those present. Even one year after the first cases of corona in Germany, this type of infection is still very diffuse and difficult to grasp for many people. The calculator developed by BurdaForward helps to better assess the risk in a specific situation in a way that is very close to everyday life. The scientific findings of Prof. Martin Kriegel, head of the Hermann Rietschel Institute at the Technical University of Berlin and advisor to the German government, were incorporated into the development.
The calculator is based on actual real data of outbreaks via aerosols, which our institute has collected together with the RKI and the Charité. This means that our model is not based on theoretical estimates like many others, but is validated with real data from practice. Overall, the calculator therefore reflects the risk of infection via aerosols very realistically in my view.“
The personal risk
"A lot of ventilation reduces the likelihood of contracting covid19 via aerosols". We often read and hear statements like this. Until now, however, it was hardly conceivable to deduce a personal risk of infection. With the CRR, this is now possible with just a few clicks.
"A special feature of the CRR is that we not only calculate the risk of infection in the event that an infectious person is in the same room as the user," emphasises Dipl. Ing. Wolfgang Pauler, Head of the CHIP Test Centre. "Our calculator also determines the probability that an infectious person is present at all. In addition, we already take into account the current frequency distribution of the more infectious B-1.1.7 mutant of the Corona virus and thus calculate an overall risk for the user to become infected through aerosol transmission," Wolfgang Pauler further explains.
In addition to the current, local 7-day incidence figure, the Covid calculator also uses individual parameters: Information about the number of people present and whether they wear masks, the length of the meeting as well as the ventilation intensity and the room size help the CRR to calculate the probability of infection.
This is how much influence we have on an infection risk
An important function of the calculator is not only that users can estimate how high their personal risk is under different conditions. They can also get a feeling for the extent to which changes in individual variables influence the risk: What happens if I stay only 2 hours instead of 4? What influence does more frequent ventilation have, and how helpful are FFP2 masks compared to simple cotton masks?
Click here for BurdaForward Covid19-Risk-Calculator
Eva Schuler
BurdaForward Communications
During my studies I discovered my enthusiasm for communication. Here, at BurdaForward, I have now been given the opportunity to live it out. When not in the office, you can usually find me somewhere in the mountains for mountaineering and skiing or on the Isar.
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