English Chess Forum

Simon Rogers wrote: ↑

Sun Aug 15, 2021 8:30 pm

However on their website it states that the Sheffield league has postponed OTB chess until after Christmas 2021
They are planning to start a new online league in September.

They're clearly feeling quite cautious in Sheffield - that's very consistent with their only being 1 (down from around 4) in the prospective new season for the Yorkshire league.

I'd agree with Alex above about leagues being potentially much more fragile than congresses.

Leagues do also have a problem with time scales. A congress is one weekend, for a league to run well you'll need to avoid major disruption over the whole of the next few months.

Roger de Coverly wrote: ↑

Sun Aug 15, 2021 10:38 am

MartinCarpenter wrote: ↑

Sun Aug 15, 2021 10:22 am

Or, at least, of enough people being deterred to render events non viable. Not a nice decision.

Over the Board Congresses so far have been sell outs. Admittedly that's with capacity restrictions, so early entry is encouraged for fear of missing out. There aren't any obvious signs of government intending the reintroduction of restrictions which would be a disincentive to entry if non-cancellable hotels and travel needed to be booked in advance.

I wasn't thinking of conditions right now, which have enough people are clearly happy with to support events.

This event was into mid November. If you're projecting ahead then you could easily be looking at a rate of ~100k/day with a fair amount of flu on the side. Given current casualty rates, I guess we'd be over 300 deaths/day.

I'm not at all sure what the Government will do if/when that does happen, some restrictions seem quite possible. More hesitant behaviour would presumably be fairly likely.

Or conditions right now could be the actual final peak, and everything will be fine. I wish there were more solid reasons to believe that.

MartinCarpenter wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 16, 2021 9:29 am

This event was into mid November. If you're projecting ahead then you could easily be looking at a rate of ~100k/day with a fair amount of flu on the side. Given current casualty rates, I guess we'd be over 300 deaths/day.

We can all be armchair epidemiologists, and have at least as good a chance of being right as the celebrity members of that profession - very recently the ultimate rock star Prof Ferguson was completely confident that we would be running at over 100k right now.

The only practical thing we can do is to offer those who wish to play chess the opportunity to do so until our rulers see some political benefit from banning it again.

MartinCarpenter wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 16, 2021 9:04 am

Simon Rogers wrote: ↑

Sun Aug 15, 2021 8:30 pm

However on their website it states that the Sheffield league has postponed OTB chess until after Christmas 2021
They are planning to start a new online league in September.

They're clearly feeling quite cautious in Sheffield - that's very consistent with their only being 1 (down from around 4) in the prospective new season for the Yorkshire league.

I'd agree with Alex above about leagues being potentially much more fragile than congresses.

Leagues do also have a problem with time scales. A congress is one weekend, for a league to run well you'll need to avoid major disruption over the whole of the next few months.

Covid cases appear quite high in Sheffield and Rotherham so that may have something to do with it

As you say, leagues are a longer time commitment than congresses, with regular rather than 1 off travelling

Within Huddersfield and Calderdale, we have spun up leagues with some rule flexibility to support participation. Bar our 'glorious' leaders banning it again, it should be a good season.

NickFaulks wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 16, 2021 9:52 am

MartinCarpenter wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 16, 2021 9:29 am

This event was into mid November. If you're projecting ahead then you could easily be looking at a rate of ~100k/day with a fair amount of flu on the side. Given current casualty rates, I guess we'd be over 300 deaths/day.

We can all be armchair epidemiologists, and have at least as good a chance of being right as the celebrity members of that profession - very recently the ultimate rock star Prof Ferguson was completely confident that we would be running at over 100k right now.

People turned out to have stayed really quite cautious, which helped! All those projected cases are still basically booked in to happen at some point. More vaccinations will help a bit of course.

MartinCarpenter wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 16, 2021 10:28 am

NickFaulks wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 16, 2021 9:52 am

MartinCarpenter wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 16, 2021 9:29 am

This event was into mid November. If you're projecting ahead then you could easily be looking at a rate of ~100k/day with a fair amount of flu on the side. Given current casualty rates, I guess we'd be over 300 deaths/day.

We can all be armchair epidemiologists, and have at least as good a chance of being right as the celebrity members of that profession - very recently the ultimate rock star Prof Ferguson was completely confident that we would be running at over 100k right now.

People turned out to have stayed really quite cautious, which helped! All those projected cases are still basically booked in to happen at some point. More vaccinations will help a bit of course.

"All those projected cases are still basically booked in to happen at some point."

I was wondering if this might be the case. The modellers - and there were four groups of them, not only Neal Ferguson's Imperial College - apparently produced similar results for moving to step 4 of the roadmap. They will have made assumptions about virus transmissibility, vaccine take-up and behavior. I wonder if it's the latter of these that they got most wrong and there's still a potential big hit still to come (with the releasing of restrictions, gatherings such as big sports events, colder weather and school returns).

Presumably we will see the effect of school returning earlier in Scotland than elsewhere

With the return of big football crowds, any effect will show up soon, though it will be the transport to the stadium plus meeting in pubs before and after games that might be the issue

Mick Norris wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 16, 2021 11:41 am

Presumably we will see the effect of school returning earlier in Scotland than elsewhere

With the return of big football crowds, any effect will show up soon, though it will be the transport to the stadium plus meeting in pubs before and after games that might be the issue

I believe - see here - Scottish schools will retain a mask mandate, have ventilation improvements and use CO2 monitors. I don't think, as currently planned, English schools will have any of these.
I agree that the football risk is probably more likely to come from meeting in pubs before (and after) and travel.

At some point surely, enough people will have got the virus that "herd immunity" will kick in to an extent for at least some areas?

That plus continued vaccinations might make the winter less bad than some currently fear.

Angus French wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 16, 2021 11:49 am

Mick Norris wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 16, 2021 11:41 am

Presumably we will see the effect of school returning earlier in Scotland than elsewhere

With the return of big football crowds, any effect will show up soon, though it will be the transport to the stadium plus meeting in pubs before and after games that might be the issue

I believe - see here - Scottish schools will retain a mask mandate, have ventilation improvements and use CO2 monitors. I don't think, as currently planned, English schools will have any of these.
I agree that the football risk is probably more likely to come from meeting in pubs before (and after) and travel.

Scotland has said they will drop mask wearing in schools as soon as possible

Scotland also running low on beer I gather

Mick Norris wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 16, 2021 8:13 pm

Scotland has said they will drop mask wearing in schools as soon as possible

Any OTB chess activity due to take place? Is it legal in Scotland yet?

Matt Mackenzie wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 16, 2021 3:05 pm

At some point surely, enough people will have got the virus that "herd immunity" will kick in to an extent for at least some areas?

That plus continued vaccinations might make the winter less bad than some currently fear.

Maybe, but they don't seem too positive about it overall, and you can see why. The vaccines don't really block its spread - as per it holding ~steady at the moment, with various obvious increases in person to person contact to come.

So we probably still have the basic issue that it will hit 'everyone' and even if only say 5-10% of the population isn't protected, you will still get noticeable (and unpleasant) results. Infinitely better than letting it rip last year of course.

Vaccines don't block its spread true, but they do hinder it. And make it much less serious for the vast majority who are still infected.

Mick Norris wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 16, 2021 8:13 pm

Angus French wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 16, 2021 11:49 am

Mick Norris wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 16, 2021 11:41 am

Presumably we will see the effect of school returning earlier in Scotland than elsewhere

With the return of big football crowds, any effect will show up soon, though it will be the transport to the stadium plus meeting in pubs before and after games that might be the issue

I believe - see here - Scottish schools will retain a mask mandate, have ventilation improvements and use CO2 monitors. I don't think, as currently planned, English schools will have any of these.
I agree that the football risk is probably more likely to come from meeting in pubs before (and after) and travel.

Scotland has said they will drop mask wearing in schools as soon as possible

Scotland also running low on beer I gather

I see that cases in Scotland have spiked in the last few days - 1,815 cases reported on Tuesday and 3,613 cases today. Schools reopened on Monday (16/8) but presumably that's too early to have had an impact.