Here’s your risk of being exposed to COVID in Whatcom at Thanksgiving dinner or shopping

Odds are one-in-10 that someone at your Thanksgiving table in Whatcom County will have COVID-19 if you keep the gathering relatively small, according to a COVID risk estimate by the Georgia Institute of Technology.

If you are eating with a group of 10 in Whatcom County there is a 10% chance one person is infected..

If you have a larger gathering of 20 people, chances nearly double to 19% in Whatcom County, the risk assessment says.

That compares to a risk of just 5% in Seattle among a group of 10, though Skagit County is higher at 16%.

The highest risk in Washington state is in Chelan County, home to Wenatchee and Leavenworth, at 25% for a group of 10.

Only a few rural areas in the Northwest have a risk of 50% or more, such as Nome, Alaska, or remote Niobrara County, Wyo.

The Georgia Tech risk estimates assume that there are four times more active cases than confirmed and reported to public health officials through testing.

And the estimates do not take into account that people with symptoms may responsibly opt to stay home.

Grocery shopping, eating out

The grocery shopping trip for all the ingredients to prepare dinner, also carries some risk.

The Georgia Tech risk assessment evaluated the risk by county that a group of 50 would have someone with COVID-19. It used that number as the level either for a supermarket or eating in a restaurant.

In Whatcom County, the risk rises to 41% in those places, the risk assessment reports.

Planning to see a movie in a after your Thanksgiving dinner? The risk that someone among a group of 100 people in Whatcom County has COVID-19 is 65%, according to the risk assessment.

The Pickford Film Center requires movie goers to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, House Manager Meghan Schilling told The Bellingham Herald in an email.

Test before you gather

You can increase the odds that no one at your Thanksgiving gathering has COVID-19 if those coming to dinner test in advance.

“Before traveling this #Thanksgiving, make sure you get tested for #COVID19, even if you’ve been vaccinated!” the Washington State Department of Health said in a Facebook post Monday. “We want you to enjoy spending time with family and friends, but we don’t want you to get your loved ones sick.”

Testing at Whatcom County’s community drive-through site at Bellingham International Airport will close early at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 22, according to a Facebook post by the Whatcom County Health Department.

The site also will be closed Thanksgiving day, as well as Christmas Eve, Christmas day, and New Year’s Day. It also will close early at 11 a.m. on New Year’s Eve.

—David Rasbach (drasbach@bhamherald.com) contributed to this story.

This story was originally published November 23, 2021 at 5:00 AM.