2333: COVID Risk Chart

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COVID Risk Chart

Title text: First prize is a free ticket to the kissing booth.

Explanation

This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Created by THE WINNER OF A TEST-TUBE EATING CONTEST. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon. If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

This comic is a graph showing the risk of COVID-19 infection of numerous activities on the horizontal axis, while showing the other (ie. safety) risks of the activity on the vertical axis. The activities are also color coded green, yellow, orange, or red, presumably indicating whether engaging in them is a good idea. All the activities are green in the upper left corner (no COVID-19 danger and no other dangers), but change to yellow, orange, and red as you go right or down.

The top of the graph contains activities that people are likely to engage in during the pandemic, beginning (from left to right) with staying at home, hanging out with friends at the park, grocery shopping, attending in-person classes, and singing in church. The first few activities are common and not very dangerous (colored green and yellow), but the last two come with significant risks of infection due to COVID-19 (they are colored orange and red). Lower on the graph the activities become more and more dangerous (though these dangers are not related to COVID-19, i.e.: they are non-covid risks) and then non-sensical, a trend often seen in XKCD comics. Some activities are grouped together, being variations of the same thing (such as going down a waterslide, going down a waterslide with a stranger, and going down a waterside on an electric scooter).The last row contains extremely dangerous activities such as (from left to right, or from low COVID-19 danger to high) bungee jumping while doing sword tricks, going down a waterslide on an electric scooter, (participating in an) axe catching contest, racing a scooter through a hospital with a mask over your eyes, and winning a test-tube-eating contest at a COVID testing lab. All these activities are likely to result in undesirable outcomes.

Part of the humor comes from the increasing ridiculousness of the "red" activities, some of which are unlikely combinations or escalations of other less-risky activities (e.g. renting an electric scooter is a "green" activity, but riding that scooter with a stranger carries more risk, and then still more from racing that scooter through a hospital, with or without a mask).

This comic strip is similar in presentation to 2282: Coronavirus Worries.

Green (low risk)

The lowest-risk category of activities has very low COVID risk and also very low non-COVID risk.

Staying home

The lowest-risk activity of all, as long as the home itself is in decent condition.

Video chats

Video chatting carries a slightly higher non-COVID risk than simply staying at home, because you might get into an upsetting argument or accidentally expose something embarrassing. As long as the person you're chatting with is not within your personal space, the risk of catching COVID from them is still zero.

Hanging out with friends in the park

Physically interacting with others creates an increased risk COVID transmission, but the major risk of transmission seems to come from sharing enclosed spaces, not the outdoors, and as long as everyone keeps to themselves, they can still safely enjoy the social interaction (as long as they aren't prone to overthinking everyday decisions).

Going for walks

Going for walks carries very little COVID risk as long as you stay by yourself. It is slightly more dangerous than staying home though, as you might fall or hurt yourself in some way.

Yellow (medium risk)

Grocery shopping

Going shopping for groceries involves entering a building in which others are present, including many workers who are present for hours-long shifts. The risk of catching COVID can be reduced by wearing face masks, barriers between staff areas and customer areas, and limiting customer densities.

Grocery shopping while hungry

Shopping for groceries while hungry does not carry any greater risk of catching COVID, but it is said to have a slightly increased non-COVID risk because people who go shopping while hungry tend to buy foods that are more expensive and less healthy. (Be advised that a study that popularized this "common sense" result has been retracted due to academic misconduct by its author, Brian Wansink.)

Transcript

This transcript is incomplete. Please help editing it! Thanks.

[This comic is a graph plotting the safety risk of activities on the vertical axis and the risk of infection from COVID-19 on the horizontal axis. Lowest risks are in the upper left corner, and highest in the lower right. All activities are color coded green, yellow, orange, or red. A two way arrow labeled “non-COVID risk” points up and down to "high" and "low" labels on the left side of the graph. Another two way arrow labeled “COVID risk” points left and right to "high" and "low" labels on the top of the graph. From left to right and top to bottom:]

Staying home & Video chats, Hanging out with friends at the park, Grocery shopping, Attending in-person classes, Singing in church

Going for walks, Hanging out with friends on the beach, Grocery shopping while hungry, Attending online classes while in class at a different school, Going to a restaurant

Riding an electric scooter, Renting an electric scooter, Grocery shoplifting & Riding a single rental scooter with a stranger, Getting a dental cleaning & Going on a tinder date, Going to a bar & Going to a party & Hosting a party & Going on a cruise

Going down a waterslide, Going down a waterslide with a stranger, Getting in a stranger’s car, Getting a dental cleaning from a tinder date, Opening a kissing booth at a COVID testing site

Playing lawn darts, Climbing a waterslide with a stranger, Getting in a stranger’s car uninvited, Doing skateboard tricks in a hospital, Doing skateboard tricks in a bar

Doing skateboard tricks, Riding a conveyor belt through the TSA x-ray machine, Axe throwing contest, Racing a scooter through a hospital with a mask on & Racing a scooter through a hospital without a mask, Skateboarding into a mosh pit on a cruise ship & Getting a COVID test from a stranger at a crowded bar

Setting off fireworks in your car, Running and sliding headfirst into the pins at a bowling alley, Stealing a stranger’s car, Racing a scooter through a hospital with a mask on & Racing a scooter through a hospital without a mask [extends from previous row], Skateboarding into a mosh pit on a cruise ship & Getting a COVID test from a stranger at a crowded bar

Bungee jumping while doing sword tricks, Going down a waterslide on an electric scooter, Setting off fireworks in a stranger’s car & Axe catching contest, Racing a scooter through a hospital with a mask over your eyes, Winning a test-tube-eating contest at a COVID testing lab

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Discussion

I'm sticking to the green, except for grocery shopping. It'll be a pain to make any kind of table for this. The columns are much better defined than the rows, though. 108.162.245.150 18:37, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Same! I think we do need to make a table or similar structure to explain each item though. Not exiting, but necessary! Do you think we should switch everything to columns? Since we've started with rows, maybe we should just continue...Cow (talk)

Staying home is a death trap. Here some random numbers (Germany 2019): Deadly accidents at home - 8000, Deadly accidents in traffic - 3500. 172.69.54.199 07:50, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Nice argument. Why don't you back it up with a source? 'Cause I doubt the truth of those numbers. I think they were made up. R3TRI8UTI0N (talk) 04:19, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Singing in a church: is this where the expression "mass contamination" comes from?141.101.107.166 08:31, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Or "weapons of mass destruction"? 162.158.159.100 09:00, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Not all the things on the far right seem to have equal covid risk. Simply going to a restaurant or some of the others that are simply dangerous by being around a lot of other people in close proximity doesn't seem to compare to opening a kissing booth at a covid testing site, the eating test tube things, and the mosh pit on a cruise ship for instance.--108.162.216.154 09:03, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

There's no inherent extra disease risk in _opening_ a kissing booth (beyond the possible proximity to others). However, the people working/volunteering at the booth you opened that might have a higher-than-average risk due to kissing all the testers and people coming to be tested. :p 108.162.216.140 12:08, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

(Required to make a choice between them and someone else, for which all else is equal) I'd kiss an off-duty Covid-tester, because they're probably far more protected by PPE during their shift (and know how to don and doff safely) than most other people, and screened with even more caution. The tester would probably not want to kiss me, in my booth, due to at least the latter point. 162.158.158.43 14:04, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

I feel like 1252: Increased Risk is quite relevant here. But I can't decide whether it should be linked as general trivia, or directly related to the paragraph about dangers of going to the beach. --Lupo (talk) 09:16, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

There have been cases of known transmission of COVID-19 during choir rehearsals and performances, so it belongs where it is shown. The choir at my church is down to two people, at opposite ends of their area. Nutster (talk) 16:01, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

"Skateboarding in a mosh pit on a cruise ship": So this looks like confirmation that NOFX and Bad Religion will be playing on the 2021 70,000 Tons of Metal cruise. Iguanabob (talk) 14:47, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

To be fair to test-tube eaters, every COVID test I've taken involved plastic tubes, not glass. So really hard to chew, but probably won't break into sharp pieces. Nitpicking (talk) 02:13, 31 October 2023 (UTC)