, Columnist
Where to Worry About Catching Covid-19, and Where Not To
How the coronavirus spreads in the real world.
Fears of catching the virus through fleeting, outdoor interactions are overblown.
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Each virus has its unique pattern of spread, and scientists are starting to get a handle on how the novel coronavirus behaves. This understanding is making it possible to rank the risks of different activities from high to low to trivial.
The most informative studies show how the disease is spreading in the real world — a big advance over the various simulations and models that, early on, showed only hypothetical scenarios.