I continue to check my little dashboard of San Francisco COVID numbers each morning to figure out whether meeting friends at a cafe for breakfast is a fine socializing:danger balance or an embarrassing "you risked your health so your friends could watch you eat?" trade-off.
About a month ago, I blogged with happy news: all three numbers I track were below the pretty-safe line. Some people watch this number, some people watch that number, some people (e.g., me) watch a few numbers; but everyone felt pretty safe then.
Alas, lately, not all three numbers are below the pretty-safe line. COVID-in-wastewater levels have been above the pretty-safe line lately (though the most-recent numbers have been below; this noisy number zig-zags a lot). The %-test-positivity number has crept up. The number-of-newly-reported-cases number has stayed low, which is nice.
Personally, I'll continue going to inessential places for now. I use my not-so-scientific-but-best-I-could-come-up-with practice of multiplying together these measures; multiplying together pretty-safe levels for those measures; and comparing. When I do that, I guess risks are still acceptable. But I won't be shocked if folks who mostly look at test-positivity-% start sending their regrets to invitations.
