My use of MicroCovid.org so far has probably been very different to most LWers, as I’m based in Sydney, Australia. So far, I’ve mostly been content to follow public health guidelines and have used MicroCovid.org about 4 times a year for the last 2 years. Each time I used it, I found it very useful for thinking about risk and improving my implicit understanding for how risky different activities were. My usage pattern looks set to change pretty dramatically though, as Australia is in the early stages of Omicron going exponential.
Of all the current features, my favourite is the ability to share the link to a custom scenario you’ve created. I’ve used that a few times in group chats to discuss whether an event should go ahead, and if so, how risky the participants should think it to be. It would be nice if the link-share feature provided shortened links, but I understand the backend implementation of this is probably inconvenient. Given the incoming Omicron burst here, improvement of this feature would be worth $100 to me. This post is my official commitment to donating an extra $100 to MicroCovid.org if this suggestion is implemented (but don’t go out of your way to do more than $100 of work if I’m the only one who wants this).
I’d also highly value model data for Omicron and future strains, but I trust that the team is already weighing the pros and cons of adding the information currently known Vs. waiting for higher accuracy.
A massive thank you to anyone involved in MicroCovid.org if you’re reading this. It has been very useful to so many people, and has collectively helped us all to reduce, manage, and feel comfortable at our chosen level of risk.
My use of MicroCovid.org so far has probably been very different to most LWers, as I’m based in Sydney, Australia. So far, I’ve mostly been content to follow public health guidelines and have used MicroCovid.org about 4 times a year for the last 2 years. Each time I used it, I found it very useful for thinking about risk and improving my implicit understanding for how risky different activities were. My usage pattern looks set to change pretty dramatically though, as Australia is in the early stages of Omicron going exponential.
Of all the current features, my favourite is the ability to share the link to a custom scenario you’ve created. I’ve used that a few times in group chats to discuss whether an event should go ahead, and if so, how risky the participants should think it to be. It would be nice if the link-share feature provided shortened links, but I understand the backend implementation of this is probably inconvenient. Given the incoming Omicron burst here, improvement of this feature would be worth $100 to me. This post is my official commitment to donating an extra $100 to MicroCovid.org if this suggestion is implemented (but don’t go out of your way to do more than $100 of work if I’m the only one who wants this).
I’d also highly value model data for Omicron and future strains, but I trust that the team is already weighing the pros and cons of adding the information currently known Vs. waiting for higher accuracy.
A massive thank you to anyone involved in MicroCovid.org if you’re reading this. It has been very useful to so many people, and has collectively helped us all to reduce, manage, and feel comfortable at our chosen level of risk.