I , a 9-5 cubicle professional, personally know 2 positive persons and 0 deceased. Statistically I should have met 0 infected persons. Does it show tech community has equal (higher) exposure?
What is your experience?
You could easily deduce how many people in your office would probably get it if you all were still headed into work based on how many people get the flu or sick each year.
I work in an office of over 100 people. We have a cleaning crew that comes in each day. Weird things happen to everything when you work in an office: human dirt and dust somehow manage to get everywhere.
Every flu season, I manage to avoid getting sick thank goodness because I generally avoid people and I have always made it a rule of my own NEVER EVER touch door knobs, handles, or high trafficed surfaces, for which I use a sleeve instead. And because I've lived like that, my chances of getting sick have been reduced. But others don't seem to be too lucky, and I'd say around 25-30 people or so get flu-like symptoms each year as it gets passed around the office.
However, when I think back on over 100 people in the office, it's generally like you all pass it amongst each other. Where does it come from? Some of those people send their children off to school who then get exposed to other children and their germs, who then bring it back to their parents, who then bring it into the office, so they can share with everyone.
COVID-19 is no different than other pandemics or even the flu that we've had. It is a deadly virus that can kill the most vulnerable in society, but it still highlights just how immune to most diseases we are each day, or at least, the fact that our bodies have been very quick to adapt to a lot of changes each day. There are millions of different bacteria that humans come into contact each day, and then they touch their faces, food, and others, and spread it. And yet... at worst, we will get sick. However, many of us might only experience none to mild symptoms, meaning we might get a sore throat for a few hours or an outright cold for a few days.
While I cannot speak for the tech community, I will say that my direct team -- not the 100 people in the office, but my deparment, which consists of about 12 people are pretty much all introverts and keep to themselves. I've actually tried to hang out with a few people in the past, I think one accepted an offer and we went hiking, and it never happened again. So for my team specifically, I highly doubt anyone is going to get the virus. Also for my state, the numbers are a bit lower, as soon as the first case hit here, our state pretty much got locked down. I believe we are now in a full month of quarantine since it started and we were told to work at home indefinitely until the news changed.
Many tools will show you what the average is of how many people get it. My state has about less than 1,500 cases, and about 60 people are getting COVID-19 per 100,000. In New York, the highest cases, about 1,000 people will have COVID-19 for every 100,000 people. Chances of living in a city will boost your chances of coming into contact with someone who is infected.