In early 2020 I was a science reporter for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, more concerned with reporting on the impacts of Australia's Black Summer bushfire crisis than the news coming out of China of a new type of viral pneumonia.
That soon changed and after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11, 2020, like many of my colleagues I was reporting on little else.
In reflecting on that time, a few things stand out to me now.
Usually as a science journalist you're reporting on research once it's been finished, thoroughly peer-reviewed and published — a process that in some cases can take years.
But during the pandemic it felt more like we were seeing the science around SARS-CoV-2 and COVID develop in real time, speaking to researchers regularly about what they could tell us from the latest research, what was speculation within their area of expertise and what they just didn't know yet.
We did this so we could write stories for an audience desperate for information — towards the end of September 2020 the ABC had received more than 100,000 questions from the public — and as the saying goes 'news they could use'.
Despite the deluge of research being produced during that time, you would sometimes come across papers that really stood out as being hugely important in taking our knowledge of COVID forward.
This story was inspired by one of them.
On August 25, 2020 the British Medical Journal published an analysis entitled 'Two metres or one: what is the evidence for physical distancing in covid-19?'.
In the paper, the authors argued that our understanding of how far we should physically distance ourselves from other people to reduce our risk of catching COVID was based on outdated science.
Instead, they said we should be looking at multiple factors that influence this risk.
As part of their work, the scientists produced a summary figure detailing the relative risk of COVID transmission under different conditions.
When I first saw that figure I wanted to turn it into an interactive quiz to make it more accessible to a general public audience. I haven't had the skills to do so until now.
So take yourself back to 2020 and hearing the news you attended an event with someone who has since tested positive for COVID.
Is your risk of catching COVID from that person low, medium or high? Let's find out.
Calculate your risk of catching COVID from someone not showing symptoms
1. Where were you?
2. How many people were there?
3. Were you wearing face masks?
4. How long were you in contact with the person who tested positive to COVID?
5. Were you speaking?
Interactive: Suzannah Lyons · Adapted from Figure 3 in Jones N R, Qureshi Z U, Temple R J, Larwood J P J, Greenhalgh T, Bourouiba L et al. Two metres or one: what is the evidence for physical distancing in covid-19? BMJ 2020;370:m3223. This quiz provides general information only of your relative risk of catching COVID-19 from someone who was asymptomatic during the height of the COVID pandemic. You may need to also consider other factors, depending on your personal circumstances.
Although we're no longer in the midst of a pandemic, according to the WHO there remains a high global public health risk from COVID. So it's still useful to know what factors increase your risk of catching COVID from someone who's not showing any symptoms.