(Chess) Life Returning To Normal

[J T Melsom]

I hope post pandemic that there is some serious reflection on how the media interacts with science. Heneghan is an example of a media friendly scientist - appeared on BBC before the pandemic - from a catchy sounding body (who wouldn't want evidence based medicine?) and provides decent soundbites. But if you go deeper he seems to have become a grifter. The government has had a bad pandemic, but there are others who haven't done much better.

[Roger Lancaster]

"... there were an estimated 439,000 people resident in the UK experiencing Long COVID symptoms a year or longer after a probable or confirmed infection ... "

That seems to me rather confused thinking. Some of those "probably" infected with Covid presumably (this follows from the definition of "probably") weren't infected, in which case - although the symptoms may have been similar - it's hard to see how they could have suffered from 'Long Covid'.

[Roger de Coverly]

Re the doubling periods:

The doubling thing fails to consider that regardless of governement diktat, that if the public were convinced that regardless of vaccination status they were liable to catch a deadly desease if they ventured out and met other people, that they would stay at home. That might be particularly true of the immediate post Christmas period when a shutdown of offices and businesses is almost normal.

Incidently does anyone still believe that COVID infections are transmitted by contaminated chess pieces?

[Angus French]

"... there were an estimated 439,000 people resident in the UK experiencing Long COVID symptoms a year or longer after a probable or confirmed infection ... "

That seems to me rather confused thinking. Some of those "probably" infected with Covid presumably (this follows from the definition of "probably") weren't infected, in which case - although the symptoms may have been similar - it's hard to see how they could have suffered from 'Long Covid'.

Well, the report describes the symptoms as "not explained by something else" and I imagine there are reasons not to have had a test to confirm infection - e.g. if a person was asymptomatic or the initial symptoms didn't match those in the Government's list or a person's work status might have been affected by a positive test result.

[Kevin Thurlow]

"I hope post pandemic that there is some serious reflection on how the media interacts with science. Heneghan is an example of a media friendly scientist - appeared on BBC before the pandemic - from a catchy sounding body (who wouldn't want evidence based medicine?) and provides decent soundbites. But if you go deeper he seems to have become a grifter. The government has had a bad pandemic, but there are others who haven't done much better."

Broadly, yes. Starting at the end, I suspect any government would have a bad pandemic! Media vs science is difficult. I remember a sensational claim in one national newspaper that drinking instant coffee doubled your chances of getting a form of cancer. I was naturally somewhat concerned with this, but luckily they gave enough info for me to track down the original paper, which was about 20 pages long, somewhere about page 10, there was a casual comment that usually there was a 1 in 100000 chance of getting tis cancer, and if you drank about ten cups of instant coffee a day, this rose to about 2 in 100000. (Later it said that this was not statistically significant, but I guess most people would realise that.) Even the BBC has had screaming headlines about chaos caused by an acid spill, then reveals it was sodium hydroxide (an alkali and still pretty nasty) that was spilled. Science coverage in the media is generally awful. Then there's "deadly E numbers" in food, like, er, E300, which is vitamin C!

I'll come back to Heneghan when I've researched him.

[Mike Gunn]

And supposing 80% of the players wanted the weekend to go ahead, would you expect the arbitrating team to respect that?

Organisers, arbiters and team captains all have a difficult role in the ciurrent situation. You have to balance your personal view of risks in the current situation with the desire of players to play (and all those players will have different estimations of the risks involved).

I am in favour of playing OTB (taking reasonable precautions) but in the last 2 weeks I played in one match where I probably wouldn't have if I hadn't been the captain and quickly agreed to cancelling another match when the opposition queried whether we should be playing it under current circumstances. I have had some symptoms similar to Covid twice this autumn (bad cold + sore throat in one case; bad cold + persistent cough in the other). In both cases the Lateral Flow Test came back negative but in each case I felt ill after putting myself in a situation I was basically doing a favour to others (covering lectures for a colleague in one case and captaining a team in the other).

The current situation is uncertain and I think organisers who are facing difficult decisions need a bit of respect/ support.

[Mike Gunn]

Same principle. I've been playing chess for 50 years.

Wearing a Perspex? Not my scene.

I'll wear a mask for shopping, but I hate shopping, so it's not the same thing.

I don't like wearing a mask either but based on somewhat limited experience the mask seems to be rather more irritating when you are losing but when you're winning you hardly notice it.

[J T Melsom]

Not sure volunteer organisers owe anything to the wider chess community. I think the wider community has a debt to the organisers that it is reluctant to properly acknowledge.

[Roger Lancaster]

Not sure volunteer organisers owe anything to the wider chess community. I think the wider community has a debt to the organisers that it is reluctant to properly acknowledge.

Quite so.

[Kevin Thurlow]

"Quite so."

Yes.

[Nick Burrows]

Yes.

Aye

[NickFaulks]

Incidently does anyone still believe that COVID infections are transmitted by contaminated chess pieces?

It was a good one while it lasted though, wasn't it!

[NickFaulks]

I think a lockdown is very unlikely, but more tournament organisers acting as if there is one much more likely

That does look like the grand plan, evading calls for compensation of bankrupted hospitality businesses. "What do you mean, we never said you should cancel your event? We just happened to mention that it would inevitably cause hundreds of unnecessary deaths and they would be your fault".

[David Robertson]

Incidently does anyone still believe that COVID infections are transmitted by contaminated chess pieces?

COVID will be transmitted by contaminated chess pieces - by definition

[NickFaulks]

The current situation is uncertain and I think organisers who are facing difficult decisions need a bit of respect/ support.

Absolutely, but part of that support consists of reassuring them that if they can put together an event where players wish to play and arbiters wish to officiate, they will not get slagged off for their efforts.