The threat of Coronavirus to ECFC

[Hants_red]

Do we know for sure whether the Cheltenham Festival helped spread the virus? Or is everything just anecdotal evidence?

 

[Legohead]

The science is clear, they will want to keep the lockdown probably up until July to keep the numbers of infections down, keeping the NHS within capacity.

June - Aug will likely see a staged "release" from lockdown for younger groups (not with underlying health conditions), like is planned in Italy. That'll mean looking at stats under 50s. Sorry to those who are older but this is a long haul thing.

With the younger mixing again, but in limited way the virus will pick up again but not as agressively (it is hoped). This period is key because we need a certain percentage (Around 2/3) to get to herd immunity, which - despite tabloids and twitter - is still the ultimate aim because it precedes the vaccine by a year+. The virus won't pass around in the exponential way it is currently with that amount of immunity, it'll be much harder for it to spread without as many carriers.

Going into Autumn they're expecting it to get worse again which will likely follow another 3 month lockdown, maybe more depending on how bad the flu and other seasonal viruses are too. Next spring we might see some normality back, be we're a long way off - it takes time to burn out a virus and it'll never be completely gone until we have a vaccine (likely mid to late 2021).

Football is going to struggle big time with all of this. Mass gatherings are ****** for the foreseeable and likely deep into next season.

All that seems doom and gloom, but it's the reality - its akin to a wartime situation in that it's totally unprecedented - people are still getting their heads around it all because it's hard to accept that amount of time in social lockdown. I get it, I live alone.

So what about schools in all of this? This scenario you paint Max makes sense but people will just give up. No way will people be cooped up until summer next year. I'd expect a lot of older folk would end up risking getting the virus anyway and taking their chances as they will either that or go crazy. Especially when seeing the younger generation going out having holidays and a good time etc. That would certainly eliminate the 'all in in together' theme even if it would be to help them ultimately.

 

[John William]

Do we know for sure whether the Cheltenham Festival helped spread the virus? Or is everything just anecdotal evidence?

We will probably never know for sure, though it is distinctly possible.

The problem with all this is the old statistical warning:

"Coincidence is not correlation; correlation is not causation"

In simple terms, two things happening at the same time does not necessarily mean they are linked; and even if they are, one did not necessarily cause the other. They could both be the result of a third factor.

So while Andrew Parker Bowles and the others MAY have caught coronavirus at Cheltenham, they may have already had it or caught it over the next few days somewhere else. With 250,000 over the three days and 68,500 at the Gold Cup day, odds are that there were quite a few already Covid-19 positive people there.

We are probably past the date for this to show (I've read 13-17 days as the peak). If there was a huge spike of people who were there confirmed as having the virus now or over the last week, we can conclude they were likely linked. How big that spike needs to be, I'm not competent to judge. Hundreds, probably?

 

[Egg]

This piece from Alastair Campbell is well worth a read; all too easy to scapegoat footballers IMO.

Covid-19: Hancock’s call for a Premiership pay cut was pure populism | TheArticle

Compared with ministers who had been fronting government handling of the Covid-19 crisis, Matt Hancock, judged purely...

www.thearticle.com

 

[Grecian Max]

So what about schools in all of this? This scenario you paint Max makes sense but people will just give up. No way will people be cooped up until summer next year. I'd expect a lot of older folk would end up risking getting the virus anyway and taking their chances as they will either that or go crazy. Especially when seeing the younger generation going out having holidays and a good time etc. That would certainly eliminate the 'all in in together' theme even if it would be to help them ultimately.

They can go further than the current lockdown if required, for the sake of keeping the hospitals functioning. If people start playing up, welcome to the world of martial law.

 

[Grecian Max]

Schools won't be back until September minimum now.

 

[Grecian Max]

RE: Cheltenham, it fell just before the ramping up of measures.

They've said all along - openly - that they're following behavioural science too here. Bringing in the lockdown was timed so that it hit the estimated peak of this in the UK (first wave at least) to ensure the hospitals had capacity. There were people shouting CLOSE IT DOWN at the time, but this - IMO - was all part of the stepped process into lockdown. We aren't China, we're an open democracy used to a lot of freedoms - we needed to be parachuted into lockdown otherwise there was a risk of significant public disorder. Everyone has to get used to hand washing first, then social distancing, then losing meeting places, then lockdown. The lockdown can get more extreme if people don't abide by the rules but from what I've seen people generally are, even if car usage is on the way back up.

 

[Legohead]

Schools won't be back until September minimum now.

If mass gatherings won't be allowed until next summer then how can schools go back before then?

 

[Legohead]

Car usage is on the way back up due to cnuts like Jack Grealish and the bloke opposite me whose mate has just arrived to help him fix a broken fence whilst observing zero social distancing.

 

[Grecian Max]

If mass gatherings won't be allowed until next summer then how can schools go back before then?

The schools are the tap to the virus, because children are extremely effective at spreading viruses in general. Bring them back and you open that tap up again - it would be a deliberate move to allow the virus to spread within in the system but in a controlled manner. To be potentially turned off again (closed) when we see the curve increasing too much again.

Likley that the schools are being briefed on how to work remotely over the summer for when they need to be closed on/off over the next year.

The virus is here, the vaccine is not. It's all about ways of managing the amount who have it at any one time. That's the best the government can do.