“Outdoors, stiff breeze, two people passing by for 100 milliseconds — there is ZERO chance of catching it.
“There are two million people in Santa Clara County. We are now getting 5 new cases a day. There are probably 200 active cases in the county, so your chance of randomly encountering a sick person is 1/10,000.
“Our town of 20,000 has had a cumulative case count of 445. Maybe there are 2 active cases today, again 1/10,000.”
I’ve learned, after many frustrating years, that most people, even really intelligent ones, don’t usually think that way. Rationally, I mean. Thinking is hard, especially when fear or pride or greed get in the way.
I worked in engineering, field service, and R&D most of my career, so my colleagues were all logical and analytical thinkers. This has been a real shocking eye-opener for me.