Covid-19 - Suspend Chess Immediately

[Daniel Gormally]

Well that's good news then. Perhaps we won't all die after all.

[Reg Clucas]

The thing I find hard to visualise here is the end game. Under what circumstances do things start up again? The virus is surely never going to disappear completely. If you've never had it you're always going to be vulnerable to it, and there will always be people out there you can catch it off. There's definitely a part of me that thinks I'd rather get it now when I'm fit and healthy, rather than have it hanging over me as my health declines.

I think the premise is that they will develop a vaccine for it. May take a while, though, as others have said.

[MartinCarpenter]

The problem with a vaccine isn't so much going to be producing candidates.

You're going to be giving the thing to hundreds of millions of people. So you have to test it, and that means really testing it, or you could easily enough end up doing more harm than good.

[Chris Goodall]

An ECF Advisory on leagues etc will be issued too, recommending suspension.

Is that actually going to happen, or are you just going to bother the ECF until it does?

[David Robertson]

Is that actually going to happen, or are you just going to bother the ECF until it does?

Both

[David Williams]

The problem with a vaccine isn't so much going to be producing candidates.

You're going to be giving the thing to hundreds of millions of people. So you have to test it, and that means really testing it, or you could easily enough end up doing more harm than good.

And it's hard enough to get people to use vaccines that are proven.

[Jonathan Rogers]

Is that actually going to happen, or are you just going to bother the ECF until it does?

Both

I haven't bothered Mike myself, nor other Board members, but I also gather (from other sources) that the 4NCL Board is about to accept the inevitable. Perhaps the last couple of days have been spent speaking with the hotel and third party booking agent before finally deciding/announcing anything, that would be perfectly understandable.

[Chris Goodall]

Is that actually going to happen, or are you just going to bother the ECF until it does?

Both

I see Well, that prediction can't go any worse than your "death of league chess" one.

[Nick Burrows]

But no one should recklessly seek out this virus

Boris Johnson disagrees.

[Jonathan Rogers]

I am not sure what else we expected from a politician who, generally in life, is pro-risk ...

[Ian Thompson]

Tomorrow's Dorset Rapidplay had an entry limit of 75 which was oversubscribed. This morning it is still showing 61 players

There's also the Birmingham Rapidplay tomorrow. Its website is currently showing a total of 67 entrants.

Dorset now down to 55 and Birmingham up to 75.

[Tim Harding]

I am not sure what else we expected from a politician who, generally in life, is pro-risk ...

Maybe Johnson and Cummings should recklessly go out and catch it, then we might be rid of them.
Same goes for that Prof Vallance or whatever his name is who has fed them this dangerous "herd immunity" theory that the WHO rightly condemns.

If only 60 per cent of the nation's children had measles vaccine that would certainly not be considered sufficient for herd immunity.
Surely something like 90 per cent is needed, and as the WHO are saying, nobody really knows how the virus affects the immune system.
A vaccine in time for the winter of 2021/22 if we are still around then looks more plausible.

[Matt Mackenzie]

The idea the virus can somehow be "targeted" so that only young people get it is pretty fantastical anyway.

(unless we plan to forcibly relocate and quarantine all our elderly)

[David Robertson]

Same goes for that Prof Vallance or whatever his name is who has fed them this dangerous "herd immunity" theory that the WHO rightly condemns

Unfair. Read on....

If only 60 per cent of the nation's children had measles vaccine that would certainly not be considered sufficient for herd immunity. Surely something like 90 per cent is needed

Yes, for measles. No, for Covid-19.

The difference in 'herd immunity' % lies in the differences in rate (R) of transmission of infection. Where R = 0, there is no transmission; where R = 0.99999, the infection will swiftly die out. But where R = 1.00001, the infection will expand exponentially in due course. So R = 1 is the baseline for control.

Covid-19 has R = 2.5. Measles has R = 10+ (ie. measles is far more infectious than Covid-19). Now calculate the % for 'herd immunity': for Covid-19, it is 1.5/2.5 = 60%; for measles: 9/10 = 90%

Of course, 'herd immunity' looks good on paper. It is good scientifically. BUT you & I, Tim, being of similar age, looked at 60% of 65 million = 40 million. We factor in a death rate, say 2%, say 3.4%, say 5.6% - and we see a huge mountain of corpses (800,000 - 2,500,000) disproportionately assembled from our age group. With Government apparently shrugging its shoulders and, ahem, washing its hands of the matter.

Cue: much chuntering and grumbling. Cue: a shrieking BoJo U-turn

[Chris Goodall]

The difference in 'herd immunity' % lies in the differences in rate (R) of transmission of infection. Where R = 0, there is no transmission; where R = 0.99999, the infection will swiftly die out. But where R = 1.00001, the infection will expand exponentially in due course. So R = 1 is the baseline for control.

Covid-19 has R = 2.5. Measles has R = 10+ (ie. measles is far more infectious than Covid-19). Now calculate the % for 'herd immunity': for Covid-19, it is 1.5/2.5 = 60%; for measles: 9/10 = 90%

Of course, 'herd immunity' looks good on paper. It is good scientifically. BUT you & I, Tim, being of similar age, looked at 60% of 65 million = 40 million. We factor in a death rate, say 2%, say 3.4%, say 5.6% - and we see a huge mountain of corpses (800,000 - 2,500,000) disproportionately assembled from our age group. With Government apparently shrugging its shoulders and, ahem, washing its hands of the matter.

Missing the forest for the trees, David. "Herd immunity" is the means, not the end. The end, is people not dying of the disease. That somewhere between 0% and 100%, there must lie some % at which the effective R0 is exactly 1, is fascinating, but if your way of getting to that % is to wait for them to catch the disease and survive it, then you've defeated that end before you've started. To conflate that policy with the "herd immunity" granted by vaccinations is barbaric. It does not look good on paper or anywhere else. You might as well "eradicate" polio by just giving everyone polio at the same time and getting it over with.