Interesting graph

From a famous mathematician.

Your chances of sharing a space with someone who is Covid positive, based on a given prevalence of Covid in the local population and a given number of people in the space:

So (using the arrow as an example), when 7% of the local population have the virus, if you share a space (supermarket, pub, restaurant, SA taxi) with about 20 people, there’s a 50% chance that at least one of them will be Covid positive.

For those that are interested in the maths, I’ve calculated the probability of at least one person in the room having Covid as 1-(1-p/200)^N Where p is the population prevalence as a percentage and N is the number of other people in the space.

In the UK at the moment, prevalence is somewhere around 4%: 1 in 25 people are positive. And that means that if you are packed tightly in any given space together with any more than about 90 people, there will be at least one of you who is positive…

Oh. Oh dear.

And yet there are still no precautions of any sort being put in place. Quite bizarre

Of course there are a few terms and conditions to Kit’s graph.
Some people might isolate if they are Covid positive. Some people might be Covid positive but asymptomatic. Some people might not have bothered getting tested, so they won’t know if they’re positive or not. All of these might affect the assumed prevalence.

And then, of course, just because you share a space with someone who is Covid positive doesn’t mean you’ll get infected (although, see headline above). That will depend on the size of the space (and therefore your proximity), the amount of time you and they spend in the space, the ventilation in the space and – of course – whether either (or both) of you is wearing a mask.

But it’s a super useful tool for just showing how likely any of us is to be sitting next door to someone who is positive. Lovely stats. Only mildly scary.

Who’s playing at Montreux?

Lots of people: it’s a big festival. But three that I specifically want to see: a-ha (which is how I ended up on the Montreux website, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, and Gabriels who have been doing some really amazing stuff lately.

And, thanks to the wonders of modern technology, all their sets will be available for livestreaming… live… as they perform.

a-ha are on at 11pm tomorrow (Friday) evening, Nick Cave 11pm on Saturday and Gabriels at 8:30pm on Wednesday the 6th July. All for free. Gratis. Mahala.

Click here for more details and for more free streams of other artists at the festival.

Day 675 – Quirky intro

Regular readers will know of my passion and enthusiasm for popular quiz show Only Connect. One of the many likeable features of the show is the quirky, single line fact given about each of the contestants as they are introduced. Stuff like:

“John Smith, a copywriter who has a room full of toy buses.”
“Angela Davies, a librarian who once unknowingly took part in a Boney M tribute act in a bar in Swindon.” or
“Stanislav Mikhailovich, a student whose favourite shirt was sold by his cousin to a man in Belfast.”

These facts are often a bit off-the-wall (hey, the whole show is a bit that way), and are always presented without context. For me, this allows the viewer to fill in the gaps in any way they choose, and thus adds to the amusement.

There are often discussions on OC forums about what people would use as their quirky facts. I don’t consider myself to have led a very boring life, but they’re more difficult to come up with than you might think. So far, I have got:

“6000, a blogger who was in a rival pub quiz team to Only Connect question editor Jack Waley-Cohen for many years.”
“6000, a laboratory manager who once watched a 90 minute argument between two prostitutes on a street in Florence, while eating a free watermelon.”
or:
“6000, a microbiologist who once sat opposite Dutch goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar on an otherwise empty District Line train.”

Not much for n years, hey? I’m sure I could do better if I really applied myself, though. Like my abseiling off the Tyne Bridge. Or disappointing my BSc supervisor by choosing not to do a thesis on Slime Moulds.

But this week has actually been very kind in supplying quirky facts. Because I can now add:

“…who once nearly blew himself up in a Victorian cottage on top of Table Mountain.”
and:
“…who once played Beat The Intro against a Quantum Physicist at a braai in Constantia.”

What fun we had.
(OK, the nearly blowing myself up bit wasn’t great, but it does make for a good story.)

So… the obvious question is: what would your best quirky fact be for your Only Connect introduction? The more bizarre, the better. But of course, they have to be true.