D19. Covid Conundrum

Contributed by Arsalan Wares, Valdosta State University

Suppose you stood on line as part of a group of 30 people waiting to receive a vaccine. After everyone finished, you were told that ten members of the group turned out to have cases of Covid. You never came down with the infection, so you couldn’t have been one of the ten. If you were neither first nor last in line, what is the probability that at least one of the two people next to you in line had the virus (but you got lucky and didn’t catch it anyway) ?

This problem originally appeared in the Prisoner’s Dilemma in the 2024 Spring issue of the PMP Newsletter. Solutions will be accepted through 2024 May 15.