F1 cancelled this year?
Discussion
TheDeuce said:
No, nothing so dramatic. The virus is not particularly easy to transmit in trace amounts and maintaining good levels of hygiene can count for a lot.
As you say, living in isolation away from the outside world isn't an option for F1 teams or in fact most of us. On that basis life should go on and for F1 to go on responsibly, the fact the teams move around a lot should be taken in to account and the measures to hinder transmission should be as robust as is practically possible.
Airborne, aerosolised particles carrying the virus are by far the shortest route to transmission - and rigid discipline, masks and thoughtfulness alone can hugely reduce that risk. In areas where there is a lot of human traffic, it's worth the effort. That doesn't mean they can't walk down a high Street to buy a can of coke etc.. If we're going to push on with as much of an F1 season as possible, it should be all about risk limitation in the obvious hot spots and high traffic areas.
That's all well and good, but like i said, how does it look if F1 carries on when most other big events are cancelled?As you say, living in isolation away from the outside world isn't an option for F1 teams or in fact most of us. On that basis life should go on and for F1 to go on responsibly, the fact the teams move around a lot should be taken in to account and the measures to hinder transmission should be as robust as is practically possible.
Airborne, aerosolised particles carrying the virus are by far the shortest route to transmission - and rigid discipline, masks and thoughtfulness alone can hugely reduce that risk. In areas where there is a lot of human traffic, it's worth the effort. That doesn't mean they can't walk down a high Street to buy a can of coke etc.. If we're going to push on with as much of an F1 season as possible, it should be all about risk limitation in the obvious hot spots and high traffic areas.
Edited by TheDeuce on Thursday 5th March 18:58
It'll look like what the truth is. Money is more important.
Governments don't lock down on a whim, Italy is losing out on silly amounts due to this.
Personally i can't see the opener happening.
LucyP said:
Drumroll said:
Another thing they will need to consider is what medical facilities will be available at the host countries. Doctors/Paramedics who attend may be involved in the treatment of the countries citizens, Will ICU beds etc be available at local hospitals.
What do you mean? I don't think that local hospitals reserve beds just for F1!Re medical facilities, taken from FIA Annexe H (which deals with Emergency Services)
It state that the receiving hospital will have:
"- senior doctors in charge of trauma, neurosurgery,
orthopaedics, general and abdominal surgery,
cardio-thoracic and vascular emergencies and
serious burns will be on duty.
- an ABO Rhesus-specific transfusion or at least 4
O Rhesus negative blood packs will be rapidly
available if needed for a casualty.
For competitions taking place wholly or partly at night,
the hospital infrastructure must be capable of allowing
the medical helicopter to land and take off at night"
It state that the receiving hospital will have:
"- senior doctors in charge of trauma, neurosurgery,
orthopaedics, general and abdominal surgery,
cardio-thoracic and vascular emergencies and
serious burns will be on duty.
- an ABO Rhesus-specific transfusion or at least 4
O Rhesus negative blood packs will be rapidly
available if needed for a casualty.
For competitions taking place wholly or partly at night,
the hospital infrastructure must be capable of allowing
the medical helicopter to land and take off at night"
Yes Drumroll, but those are not relevant.
Those are to deal with trauma. They are designed with an injured driver from an accident on the track in mind, who has been stabilised at the circuit medical centre, and then transferred to the designated trauma hospital.
They are irrelevant to a situation where half of the paddock comes down with Coronavirus.
Those are to deal with trauma. They are designed with an injured driver from an accident on the track in mind, who has been stabilised at the circuit medical centre, and then transferred to the designated trauma hospital.
They are irrelevant to a situation where half of the paddock comes down with Coronavirus.
LucyP said:
Yes Drumroll, but those are not relevant.
Those are to deal with trauma. They are designed with an injured driver from an accident on the track in mind, who has been stabilised at the circuit medical centre, and then transferred to the designated trauma hospital.
They are irrelevant to a situation where half of the paddock comes down with Coronavirus.
I disagree, if the designated hospital can not provide those facilities (for example key staff have the virus) then the event won't take place. Those are to deal with trauma. They are designed with an injured driver from an accident on the track in mind, who has been stabilised at the circuit medical centre, and then transferred to the designated trauma hospital.
They are irrelevant to a situation where half of the paddock comes down with Coronavirus.
The FIA are quite strict on this. ( friend of mine was the CMO for the Superleague Formula)
Fully excepting that the most likely reason not to race will be team issues, but with different countries, opting (currently) for different approaches, you could have the situation where the virus rate is "high" yet the country still allows public gatherings.
thegreenhell said:
It's not down to F1 and the teams to mitigate and just get on with it. If governments say no travel or no visitors from certain regions then that 's the end of it.
Of course. But Melbourne is by all accounts going ahead, and showing some sensible measures there can only help other destinations see that the sport can go ahead and travel responsibly.Quite apart from that, for the sake of their own welfare why not have the teams take a few obvious precautions? They're about to do a round the world tour at a slightly tricky time.
I'm just trying to be measured about this. The world can't stop and hide so niether should F1... But right now, traveling around the place does increase the need to be as responsible as possible imo.
Drumroll said:
I disagree, if the designated hospital can not provide those facilities (for example key staff have the virus) then the event won't take place.
The FIA are quite strict on this. ( friend of mine was the CMO for the Superleague Formula)
Fully excepting that the most likely reason not to race will be team issues, but with different countries, opting (currently) for different approaches, you could have the situation where the virus rate is "high" yet the country still allows public gatherings.
Drumroll, sorry but you don't understand. If it gets to the point that major hospital trauma units do not have the kind of medics available that are on your list, that WILL NOT be the reason for the event being cancelled. It will be because there is a Coronavirus pandemic in the country and you won't be able to go there anyway. The FIA are quite strict on this. ( friend of mine was the CMO for the Superleague Formula)
Fully excepting that the most likely reason not to race will be team issues, but with different countries, opting (currently) for different approaches, you could have the situation where the virus rate is "high" yet the country still allows public gatherings.
And there will not be a situation where the virus rate is "high", yet the country still allows public gatherings. That would be totally irresponsible, and even if they did the teams wouldn't go and they would be breaching their duties towards their staff if they made them go.
Look at Italy. From yesterday, all schools and universities are closed. All sports fixtures have to take place behind closed doors.
LucyP said:
Yes Drumroll, but those are not relevant.
Those are to deal with trauma. They are designed with an injured driver from an accident on the track in mind, who has been stabilised at the circuit medical centre, and then transferred to the designated trauma hospital.
They are irrelevant to a situation where half of the paddock comes down with Coronavirus.
Why on earth would half the paddock come down with coronavirus? Before it was even detected it started going human to human in a place where people are not in the finest of health and living continuously in extremely dense conditions - and ignoring the hype and press spectacle, the truth is it's failed to even sratch the surface of how regular flu does the rounds.Those are to deal with trauma. They are designed with an injured driver from an accident on the track in mind, who has been stabilised at the circuit medical centre, and then transferred to the designated trauma hospital.
They are irrelevant to a situation where half of the paddock comes down with Coronavirus.
It's new, it's scary. It's probably the start of some really nasty strains... But right now it's a long lived (on surfaces) but relatively poor at jumping virus with no chances of killing as many people worldwide by the end of this year as regular flu will in a single continent alone. Quite possibly not even as many as a single decent sized country.
LucyP said:
Deuce, you really ought to start reading the news. Have a look at the number of cases in Northern Italy. Read what I posted about the Italian restrictions. It only takes one chef from say the Ferrari hospitality unit.
I read plenty - and then I turn away from the news rammed in to my face and look at the facts.It's a new type of contagious virus but remains overall less easy transmit and less deadly than others we have lived with for a very long time.
The issues here seem to be muddled - obviously governments want to be seen to protect their own so will put in place travel bans if they feel the need, that could scupper F1 no matter how responsible F1 could prove to be.
That is entirely a different matter to what F1 itself could do to minimise risk and also a different matter to how great the risk really is.
Can you link to a source that gives an example of another scenario where the equivalent of 'half the paddock' gets coronavirus after a weekend together? Because looking at the rate of transmission and the size of 'dose' required to transmit, a 50% infection rate doesn't really reflect what has happened in far denser breeding grounds that are frankly not mostly occupied by such educated and aware people as in the F1 paddock. That's not me being snobby about F1 folk either - it's just a fact that right now all staff are at the centre of a sport surrounded by concerns about the virus, so they are more likely to be aware and think about their own precautions and care of others around them.
I don't think you understand the reality. F1 will not be happening much beyond Australia. MotoGP have cancelled Qatar and Thailand. Many other sporting events around the world are being cancelled. The EU Parliament in Strasbourg has been closed. Large, professional employers in London had told staff not to come to work. (And if you want to be snobbish - those companies, employ a much more educated workforce than someone peeling vegetables in a motorsport hospitality kitchen in a paddock).
Pericoloso said:
There's no convincing Deuce that F1 might have to cancel stuff this year.
He might have to slum it at Brands Hatch and watch some Minis or Caterhams racing instead.
Unlikely. Palmer is no dummy, and his company essentially runs WSB and MotoGP in the UK. WSB at one of his circuits. He will know exactly what Dorna are saying and doing, and he will be following suit if there is a pandemic in the UK.He might have to slum it at Brands Hatch and watch some Minis or Caterhams racing instead.
Pericoloso said:
There's no convincing Deuce that F1 might have to cancel stuff this year.
He might have to slum it at Brands Hatch and watch some Minis or Caterhams racing instead.
Have you not read my posts then? For the last several weeks I have cast doubt on whether or not it's realistic the season can go ahead. To be honest, I doubt it can - the public concern is too great, and the precedents already being set in the form of travel bans affecting other sports. I think a handful of GP's will happen, then the situation will become silly as teams start to become more handicapped even getting to the races, at which point the championship becomes a joke. That's the reality I see as to how this will play out.He might have to slum it at Brands Hatch and watch some Minis or Caterhams racing instead.
None of the above however will lead me to agree with LucyP that thinks there is a serious chance that 'half the paddock' will get the virus based on the efforts of a travelling Italian Chef. That sort of transmission rate has never been linked with this virus, not even close to that.
As per my previous post, the reality of the virus, and the reality of how people react to the story, are two very different things.
Edited by TheDeuce on Thursday 5th March 22:26
So how come there are over 3000 cases in Northern Italy and 148 deaths if it doesn't spread so easily? Did 3000 people all travel to China recently on a cheap holiday? Did lots of Chinese people suddenly decide to visit Venice in winter for a gondola ride.
Face facts: It spreads pretty rapidly and pretty easily. It could quite easily affect half the paddock in F1.
Face facts: It spreads pretty rapidly and pretty easily. It could quite easily affect half the paddock in F1.
LucyP said:
So how come there are over 3000 cases in Northern Italy and 148 deaths if it doesn't spread so easily? Did 3000 people all travel to China recently on a cheap holiday? Did lots of Chinese people suddenly decide to visit Venice in winter for a gondola ride.
Face facts: It spreads pretty rapidly and pretty easily. It could quite easily affect half the paddock in F1.
In at least a 3 month period of exposure, in Italy 148 deaths and 3000 cases - got it.Face facts: It spreads pretty rapidly and pretty easily. It could quite easily affect half the paddock in F1.
That's below the average in the UK for seasonal flu alone, at least before the campaigns for the elderly to get the flu jab. For a number of years the figures were way higher. Over half a million people this year alone will die of regular flu around the world. There are no projections of corona virus having that toll.
Look at the numbers: half a million die from regular flu in spite of vaccines each year = no headlines. Around 3000 people die of a new virus strain in 3 months and headlines are raised sky high. Because... it's 'new', it's a story. It's got people jumping, it sells.
I can well imagine you will feel vindicated in your fears in the following weeks as the death toll will surely rise, in fact it will accelerate. If you think it's bad today, it will feel far worse to you in a months time. But I personally very much doubt by the end of this year, it will be anything like as deadly to you personally as the risk of catching flu has been to you all your life. Statistically, it's not the end of days super-bug we're all apparently waiting for.
It's also no more likely to rampage through the paddock than many other virus's. But it will feel like it is, because it's the only virus that a waiting press will report on if there is a single suspected transmission.
So we obviously don't agree about the real life dangers - which is fine, we don't have to agree. I do however 100% agree with you that the season itself, as a result of corona-virus, is likely screwed. The damage is done already - whatever the reality behind the hype, the hype is enough.
We don't agree Deuce, because I listen to the experts, and I don't think you do. Dr Bruce Aylward for instance, who is the Assistant Director General of the World Health Organisation, who led an international mission to China to learn about Corona. His estimate was that it is 10 times more deadly than flue. He was talking about a 1% mortality rate. The worldwide rate is currently 6%, and that is if China is telling the truth. If the remaining cases all recover and there are no more infected people (which is fantasy), then the death rate would fall to 3%.
Flu has been around for so long, that much I known about it and the R0 number, which is the basically how easily it is spread is 1.3. Obviously much less is known about Corona but the R0 number is between 2 and 3. Therefore it is spread much more easily.
Flu has been around for so long, that much I known about it and the R0 number, which is the basically how easily it is spread is 1.3. Obviously much less is known about Corona but the R0 number is between 2 and 3. Therefore it is spread much more easily.
Why do you think governments around the world are acting the way they are if this virus is no more dangerous than the common flu?
If you catch this virus it's up to 20 times more lethal, with a much higher requirement for hospital care due to pneumonia.
The only reason the numbers are relatively small right now is because it's early days and containment is managing the spread. Thats not going to last based on common sense and the long term message coming out of governments and health professionals.
I will be very surprised if most of the events i work at are not severely affected, if it's as bad as the potential it's likely lots in my line of work will be made redundant.
If you catch this virus it's up to 20 times more lethal, with a much higher requirement for hospital care due to pneumonia.
The only reason the numbers are relatively small right now is because it's early days and containment is managing the spread. Thats not going to last based on common sense and the long term message coming out of governments and health professionals.
I will be very surprised if most of the events i work at are not severely affected, if it's as bad as the potential it's likely lots in my line of work will be made redundant.
Gassing Station | Formula 1 | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff