Coronavirus and the World Championships | Page 15 | Golden Skate

Coronavirus and the World Championships

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This is an idea to reduce the crowd at the event... so a voluntary offer... take it or leave it.

Weeeellll, they might get a few takes... not, I fear, enough to make it worth their while.
 
I saw Phil's tweet about the ISU needing to make a decision by this upcoming Wednesday, since people will start to travel after that.

At this point, I'm kind of hoping they will cancel or postpone (with the option of getting refunds for tickets). There are more calls on Twitter for this. Many are upset over the ISU Awards and the red carpet being a hotbed for spreading the virus.

I've sunk a lot of money into this, but there are too many unknowns packing people all over the world into an enclosed space for consecutive days, when many officials are advocating "social distancing" until it's contained. I also have an elderly mother with COPD, and while I don't live with her, the thought of me accidentally exposing her to the virus makes me anxious.

This is how I feel too. I get a flu shot every year as I have COPD, . AND, just as important, I do not wish to be morally responsible for killing someone's grand mother, unlike half my country mates who dont get the shot. Yes, the vast majority of people get better from this...whether they take it home and give it to someone's grandmother is another question.

I listen to and dont critize those that say so few people die from this that those people stand a good chance of dieiing from colds, flu, what have you anyway...at what point do we shut down the educational system and economy ? We dont do that for flu?
Let everyone get this bug, get immune, and kill the thing off and be done with it till it mutates or resurfaces.... buy time and protect those down the road by getting community immunity so we dont get such violent outbreaks....
I know Iran is doing something like that....
I have no answers...but in a month or two we should know where we are going, and I hope it isnt like Italy with 1/4 of the people are in a kind of defacto quarentine.
I also hope the governments of the world wake up, get prepared for the next one, and stop making these bugs, even though it is unintentional. NO BUSH MEAT.
 
If they cancel and gave out refunds, they would lose a lot of money.

I'll be frank though, the ISU gives off the impression of doing a lot of performative CYA right now. Just doing enough which won't cost them that much money or get them sued. I see no indication that they've tried to encourage those from countries most stricken by the virus to not come to event preferring to just leave it to the government.

Here's a measure they could take to reduce total attendance and hence reduce potential spread. I would give out vouchers equal to double of the value of the tickets paid that can be redeemed for tickets to individual grand prix events. Since those events almost always have some empty seats and since many who take the voucher might not redeem it just like any gift card, they would not lose money doing this.

I am ignorant of what happens in the funding of this event. I thought the ISU accepts the highest bidder? . So if SkateCanada bid to put on the event and made a deal with the Arena to put on the event, and the Arena keeps a large portion of the money, who exactly would refund the money and in what purportion? I was only on the inside of one bidding process...Spokane 2010. Nats. Toby and Barb, a small sports promotion firm, put together a colleliton of people to kick in bucks. Hotels, restaurants, the arena, even the state of wa who kicked in $100,000 if the bid was won, as they stood to make 10 times that in taxes..... Well, Toby and Barb won the bid and put on a great comp, but the state of WA renigned on their $100,000 pledge and just kept all the tax money they got. As far as I know, Toby and Barb never bid on another figure skating event for Spokane (Dont know if they were involved with the Team Challange cup or not.)

Any know where the money goes?
 
I didn’t think it was an of course since the US doesn’t have them. Thanks for the link!

What are you talking about? The US has tests and they are getting out to everyone. I'm a teacher in the US and two young kids in my school were tested last week. Thankfully the tests came back negative, but there was absolutely no problem getting the tests.
 
Either way, I'm sure a sizable number of ticketholders aren't going

4CC was impacted, though the crowds (all wearing masks) for the final flight of both men and women was still good...
 
Fewer than 7,000 tests administered in U.S. as of yesterday. Extremely unlikely your kids were tested for Covid-19.
 
What are you talking about? The US has tests and they are getting out to everyone. I'm a teacher in the US and two young kids in my school were tested last week. Thankfully the tests came back negative, but there was absolutely no problem getting the tests.

It has been widely reported in the US news media that the US has very very few tests.

https://www.npr.org/2020/03/06/8127...rapple-with-shortage-of-coronavirus-test-kits

Also, either Jackie or Phil just tweeted the largest tennis tournament outside of the Grand Slams has been cancelled. Sorry can’t remember which.
 
Fewer than 7,000 tests administered in U.S. as of yesterday. Extremely unlikely your kids were tested for Covid-19.

I am glad YOU said this. And every patient likely gets more than one test. The test kit bottleneck is getting opened up , after a batch of bad kits, but the next bottleneck is getting all those 90 labs up and running. People cruising is creating a huge demand. One person gets sick and suddenly 5,000 kits are needed for pax and crew. And the WA state nursing homes that have deaths now need kits for the corpses untested and their families. Without knowing how many are really infected in real time, this is tough to fight. Hurrah for Korea! Drive through testing. Two hours and the phone rings and you know....
 
A huge tennis tournament in Indian Wells, California was cancelled today. That might be an ominous sign for sporting events occurring in the near future.
 
I had deliberately not posted anything in here. But because coronavirus has now reached my doorstep, I will now.

I just cannot get over how badly this whole thing has been handled. And the decisions that have been made that have actually helped to spread the virus.

As soon as the scale of the initial outbreak became apparant, China should have closed their borders. Nothing (be it people or goods) gets out. That would have stopped the virus spreading to other countries, and made dealing with it more effective.

Foreign countries and companies should not have been carrying out evacuations of their people. I know the intentions were honourable - "get our people out of the danger zone". But, all it was doing was potentially carrying the disease with them to other parts of the world. Instead, they should have been telling the people to stay put, and advising them on the precautions to take to try to prevent catching it.

Now that it has spread, badly thought out decisions are still being made.

Because the health service in the UK has for many years been struggling to cope with the demands on it, they have been telling people that if they show symptoms, don't go to the doctor's or the hospital or anything. Instead, phone up to arrange a test at a secure facility, and self-isolate until the results come through.

Well, my local football team played a home match on Saturday afternoon. And early on Saturday evening, they were informed that one of the players on the opposing team had just received a positive test result for coronavirus. Now bearing in mind the length of time it takes for the test results to come through, he must have been tested well before the match. Yet he still went ahead and played in it, despite the fact that he should have been self-isolating.

Anybody with half a brain could have told you that telling people to self-isolate was never going to work as a policy to contain the spread, because there are always going to be people who will go against what they have been told to do.

The player in question had recently been on holidays in Italy, and had caught it there. He was not displaying any symptoms, and the club says they didn't know he had been tested. But surely at least some people from the team would have known where he had been on holidays. So as a precaution the club should have stopped him from playing until the incubation time for the virus was over. But they didn't.

And now hundreds of people, if not thousands, have been exposed to it. Just because of one footballer being a selfish so-and-so. And his club doing nothing about it.

In light of this episode, I am now strongly of the opinion that all recreational gatherings, including sporting events, should be called off until this thing gets under control. As a fan, of course I want to see the World Championships happen. And I don't want fans who have paid to go there to miss out.

But, we have to think of the wider picture.

CaroLiza_fan
 
criticizing chinese government's response is hard.

It took over 5 hundred confirmed cases for Chinese government to put armed soldiers in the streets enforcing total lockdown, in Germany there are over 1000 confirmed cases now, yet German government has yet to lock down the country, also, mind that Chinese government didn't knew what they were dealing with at the beginning.

Yeah, I understand, now we know how bad it is and in hindsight, Chinese government should have locked the country down in December but... Come on, that decision costs tens of billions of dollars and nobody is going to make that unless they are SURE that things are really bad. As bad as it sound, when something like this happens, it's always 'too early' to act, until it's 'too late'.

It's easy to be bold and recommend making tough decisions when responsibility doesn't lie on you.
 
Honestly, if I were a betting woman, I'd bet that they will end up cancelling this now.
 
criticizing chinese government's response is hard.

It took over 5 hundred confirmed cases for Chinese government to put armed soldiers in the streets enforcing total lockdown, in Germany there are over 1000 confirmed cases now, yet German government has yet to lock down the country, also, mind that Chinese government didn't knew what they were dealing with at the beginning.

Yeah, I understand, now we know how bad it is and in hindsight, Chinese government should have locked the country down in December but... Come on, that decision costs tens of billions of dollars and nobody is going to make that unless they are SURE that things are really bad. As bad as it sound, when something like this happens, it's always 'too early' to act, until it's 'too late'.

It's easy to be bold and recommend making tough decisions when responsibility doesn't lie on you.

Oh, don't worry. I realise it takes time to realise the full extent of something. Back in December, nobody knew it was going to be as major a thing as it became. So, we didn't realise that steps needed to be taken. But by mid-January, we did.

I'm just saying that when steps were taken in late January to lock down the areas in Hubei that were most affected, the international borders should have been closed as well.

As for other countries that it has since spread too, they should have taken stronger action too.

But, hey, we can't turn the clock back. So, we just have to accept what we have, and learn from it for the next time something like this happens.

CaroLiza_fan
 
Agreed, hindsight is a wonderful thing. I don't actually think the Chinese government's response and actions are the worst. I'm more critical of my own government's response where the only actions they've seemingly taken is to hand out leaflets at the airport. Our health system is definitely not prepared for this given the lack of beds in hospitals and how there's no precautionary measures taking place anywhere so people are panicking at the lack of information (they won't even announce the names or cities of towns where infected cases are, just saying "a man from the East" or some such thing). They've had at least since January to start preparing for this situation and this is the best they can come up with? I envy those in Singapore or Taiwan as they seemed much more prepared, having really learned from the SARS epidemic.

Anyway, regarding Worlds, I just wish they would announce something soon because the anxiety is eating me up. Even if it's a statement on a date when they should announce a decision or something. The lack of announcements about it is worrying since all they seem to care about is their new gala/red carpet shtick - which at the very least should be cancelled even if the competition does still happen. It's just irresponsible at this rate to continue with it given its pretty non-essential to figure skating.
 
That is a point though, the Olympic Committee seems to be ignoring the Southern hemisphere (where it'll be winter), or is it assumed all Southern hemisphere athletes will be training in the northern hemisphere instead? I mean some will be, but not all.

The Olympic Committee aren't the only ones ignoring the Southern Hemisphere; the rest of this thread is, too.
 
They haven't cancelled world junior synchro championships, and they even have an itallian team coming. THis is in Nottingham, UK. this is way less important than a senior worlds, so id bet that they keep senior worlds on as Canada isn't hard hit.

Alternatively they could stop crowds from international places and just have lots of live stream options.
 
I have come across one vaguely hilarious figure-skating-related note of levity in all this: in The Guardian, in today's coronavirus liveblog (yes, really) a story about tensions between Japan and South Korea flaring up again after the imposition of virus-related travel restrictions was illustrated with...a picture of flower-girls picking up Poohs off the ice after Hanyu - representing Japan - skated his free program at Four Continents (held, of course, in South Korea).

Not only was it completely unexpected, it was also an image completely at odds with what the story was about. International tensions and cheerful Winnies-the-Pooh on ice? Somebody's more of a skating fan than they are an image selector!
 
The Olympic Committee aren't the only ones ignoring the Southern Hemisphere; the rest of this thread is, too.

Well, except that I was avoiding posting in this thread up to now, I would have mentioned the strange situation in the motorsports championships that I follow.

Here is how the calendars currently look, up to the end of April:

[TABLE="class: grid"]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"][/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2, align: center"]World Superbikes[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2, align: center"]MotoGP[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2, align: center"]Formula 1[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Round 1[/TD]
[TD]1[SUP]st[/SUP] March:
Australia[/TD]
[TD]Went ahead.[/TD]
[TD]8[SUP]th[/SUP] March:
Qatar[/TD]
[TD]MotoGP class cancelled; support classes went ahead as teams already at circuit for testing.[/TD]
[TD]15[SUP]th[/SUP] March:
Australia[/TD]
[TD]Going ahead.
UPDATE: Cancelled 2 hours before Free Practice 1 due to start.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Round 2[/TD]
[TD]15[SUP]th[/SUP] March:
Qatar[/TD]
[TD]Postponed; no new date yet.[/TD]
[TD]22[SUP]nd[/SUP] March:
Thailand[/TD]
[TD]Moved to October.[/TD]
[TD]22[SUP]nd[/SUP] March:
Bahrain[/TD]
[TD]Being held without spectators.
UPDATE: Postponed; no new date yet.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Round 3[/TD]
[TD]29[SUP]th[/SUP] March:
Spain[/TD]
[TD]No news yet.
UPDATE: Moved to October.[/TD]
[TD]5[SUP]th[/SUP] April:
USA[/TD]
[TD]No news, but uncertain given cancellation of South By South-West in same city.
UPDATE: Moved to November.[/TD]
[TD]5[SUP]th[/SUP] April:
Vietnam[/TD]
[TD]No news yet.
UPDATE: Postponed; no new date yet.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Round 4[/TD]
[TD]19[SUP]th[/SUP] April:
Netherlands[/TD]
[TD]No news yet.
UPDATE: Moved to August.
[/TD]
[TD]19[SUP]th[/SUP] April:
Argentina[/TD]
[TD]No news yet.
UPDATE: Moved to November.[/TD]
[TD]19[SUP]th[/SUP] April:
China[/TD]
[TD]Postponed; no new date yet.[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

So, I have been wondering: Is there a reason why the events in Victoria are going ahead without restrictions? Is the situation in Victoria better than elsewhere? Or, are the races too much of a money spinner for Melbourne for them to be cancelled?

This isn’t meant to be a criticism. I’m just curious.

CaroLiza_fan
 
So, I have been wondering: Is there a reason why the events in Victoria are going ahead without restrictions? Is the situation in Victoria better than elsewhere? Or, are the races too much of a money spinner for Melbourne for them to be cancelled?

This isn’t meant to be a criticism. I’m just curious.

Yeah, it's mostly money. But there's also still a long-ingrained sense that we're insulated from...well, everything really...by distance and general isolation (not just Australia as a whole from the rest of the world, but state to state too: it takes a day to travel from Melbourne to Adelaide by land and we still think of that, not the fact that it takes just over an hour by air). It's not true, and we really need to kick the she'll-be-right attitude for once before it kicks us back, but it's part of our mindset and informs decision-making more than it should.
 
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