Nobody really knows

Racing started here in Oz and in some Asian locations four months ago.
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 It did last Fall in Texas at least on a limited basis.

Just our of curiosity where do you live and how old are you (in terms of getting the vaccine). Congrats that you don't have to worry about this for yourself and potentially giving this to others. That must be a relief.

Like the Santos Tour Down Under and the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race?

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no sponsors | no races | nothing to see here

What about the vaccine means he can't give it to others?

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The Sunshine Coast 70.3 was held in mid September,Ironman Cairns in Late September,the Hervey Bay 100 was run in November,the Queensland Triathlon series has been underway for months,Busselton 70.3 held in mid October. The Noosa leg of the Ocean Swim Series in on next month and a week later the first running of the Ultra355k Australia will be held in Hervey Bay.The list goes on and on.

The two bike races you mentioned were only cancelled because of logistics involving quarantine for a huge number of overseas professionals and assorted race staff.To replace the usual cycling festival the Santos Festival of Cycling begins next week.
Santos Festival of Cycling | January 2021 | Tour Down Under

Plenty of other sports are up and running
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Racing resumed in the southeast US last fall. I expect the spring FL and TX races to happen and the spring TN races are iffy. I do not expect any early races in CA, HI, MI, northeast, etc. Early races in ID, VA, OK, etc. are probably iffy as well.

If I remember, you live in Massachusetts. If so, based on the State's Covid plan, mass public athletic events (e.g. road races, triathlons, bicycle races) are not allowed until Phase 4. Phase 4 occurs once the vaccine is readily available and administered. Presumably, all the infection rate hurdles in the lower phases must also be met. Give that, the early season races (May, June and probably July) are a no-go. The August and September races may occur. Maybe we'll get lucky and there will be some Cyclocross this year.

The BAA is planning on a fall (October-ish) Marathon but that is still up in the air.

Curious on your thoughts for IMCDA in late June?

Or IMCOZ late November?

;-)

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I don't know anything and this only a guess:

Ironman figured out how to run Ironman Florida (anyone can argue whether this was good idea or not... I'm just saying they got the race in).

Just thinking about US IM races... My guess is that if things are going in the right direction, like others have said, in certain geographies... some spring races happen. And then more races happen in summer... with momentum starting in July/August.
I believe Kona happens.

I don't believe America will wait for everything to be completed be sorted in relation to infection rates, vaccination rates, etc. As soon as people get vaccines and numbers go down... and as soon as there is a feeling (and media reporting of).. "new admin is getting this under control"... people will start moving again, traveling again. I believe in a very significant way. Will this likely be the right thing to do for US as a whole? No. Will it probably extend virus impact longer than is necessary? Probably.

In all of this, I believe events like Ironman will find a way to get a lot of races done. Too much riding on it for all parties involved. Some may not happen due to individual race circumstances.

Will the races have to be run in very different way? Yes. But they have the protocols and plans in place...so no scrambling to figure out. Will people likely have to make a choice whether they think it's safe? Yes. I think this is where we will see the most heartache (for athletes, etc). Do you feel confident in racing? Many will. Many will not.

No idea on those two. My opinion is based on recent race activity (did they have any races in 2020) combined with local political patterns and Coronavirus numbers. ID's cases & deaths look like they are flattening out, so that helps optimism for a spring race. I have not been following their politics.

Cozumel? No idea. Mexico's numbers are not looking great now, but November is a very long way away. And, Cozumel is a tourist destination. And, the vaccine should be broadly deployed by 3Q

One thing in favor of some spring races happening is that once the first round of vaccines are out to the high risk groups then the death rates should plummet and people are more likely to get more lax about it as a whole. not saying that it is necessarily "right" to become lax at this point but id expect society as a whole to start becoming more lax as death rates drop and people in general being eager to get back to things being semi-normal

but I think consensus is that June/July/August is when more races will start happening than not but in the spring there still will be some races location dependent

Handheart is right I live in Massachusetts. I’m 40 years old. Got it on dec 23rd and get my second dose this afternoon. Thanks it’s actually a relief that I’m helping the US slowly crawl to normalcy as well.

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I still lapped everyone on the couch!

*less likely to give it to others.

Currently training for IMTX. I give it a 50/50 at best. Probably wind up being pushed to October in Waco again. Which honestly I would not mind.

[pink] Oh and did racing ever even stop in Mexico? [/pink]

Where I live in Canada as a healthy 55 year old, I doubt I get anywhere close to a vaccine by June or July based on current projections. So I am just hoping that our current lockdown with a stay at home order ends 28 days from now, so I can see my parents, go to a pool and do basic things. I am hoping for small local tri, run and open water swim events with or without vaccine this summer

they have resumed in different forms. But maybe you should have rephrased your question to "when will over priced pampered race like events return with finisher chutes, finisher medals, and participation clothing/gear to brag about your participation - be back?"

Ontario?
I am in NS and given our 'bubble', and the current message from government that they won't open the bubble (to drop the 2 week quarantine requirement) until 70% are vaccinated, means that even if IM races in Quebec or elsewhere are held, I won't be able to go.

2022 for the win! (IF the vaccines actually prove to work).......

I am also training for IMTX and I'd give it the same odds. It's tough training for the same race for a second year in a row when I half expect it will be postponed again. But I don't want to lose my money by not training and then having the race go forward. I'm sure it's a dilemma that many face.

I am not so worried about IM racing. Local time trial format open water, run and tri racing should be doable whether people are vaccinated or not within whatever size of outdoor groups end up being allowed. By this summer 50-200 person events could fit into that. Quebec was allowing 250 person last summer.

Our largest local sprint/oly tri announced yesterday, that they are a go for June. Our traditional New Years race series raced live. A week later, our largest state trail racing series, kicked off live. The races are following covid precautions, but in our area (Kansas), real racing has returned to it’s normal schedule.

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Athlinks / Strava

I would put myself at the more nervous end of the spectrum in terms of COVID, but I'm not that worried about infections from participating in the race itself. The risk comes from the travel and people eating indoors around the event. There is also the question as to whether it's feasible or fair to place greater stress on the local health care system by either helping injured athletes or diverting medical personnel to a race. Harris County is currently at Level 1 (Stay Home) and Montgomery County does not seem to have COVID under control at all (see the images below taken from its COVID dashboard). The situation needs to improve significantly in the next three months if we are going to race.

Dan,

Thanks for the article.

It's an extraordinarily complicated situation. As we sit here mid January - It's fair to say that no one really knows what's going to be happening this year.

In Canada, because of geography our Triathlon Race Season is very short. Essentially June 1 - Mid-Sept. This is speculation, but with my work for the Canadian Endurance Sports Alliance - CESA - https://www.endurancesportsalliance.ca/ and talking to EVERY major running, cycling and triathlon race/event organizer from Coast-to-Coast in the past few months, many politicians, health officials and others, speaking speculatively here, I would be surprised if we have anything close to a "normal" triathlon season in Canada. The bigger the race - the more vulnerable it is. The word on the street, from Race Directors I have spoken to, is they are getting Absolutely NO WAY from municipalities regarding permits (Now is when they are usually negotiated). Makes sense - right now in most parts of the country only 5, yes that's right FIVE people can gather together outside!!

There may be a few micro small time-trial kind of races/events with pretty heavy protocols and social distancing measures in place in the summer - but that might be it.

Vaccination which has been brought up here, will be of little help for THIS year - it's really a 2022 solution for the Endurance Sports Race/Event Business in Canada. The roll out of the vaccines here will be from what I have seen already VERY methodical - in other words if you are healthy fit, are not immuno-compromised, and not a front line healthcare worker . . we will be the LAST to be vaccinated. No queue jumping!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

HITS Sarasota was a great race this past weekend. A bit chilly (temps in the 40s to 50s) but a well run race.

147 finishers in the sprint, 92 in the Olympic and 50 finished the half.

i think it's going to be a more rural phenomenon, where cities and large counties are less a part of the permitting process. and i'm talking more in the U.S., where public health decisions are less federally centralized. in the U.S., the issue is polarized into an A/B decision, with A saying, "so you don't believe in science," and B saying, "so you're fine with seeing entire communities financially self-immolate."

in the U.S. what i perceive is that public health officials are right in the science, but not always right in the policy decisions. for example, i think the majority of those in public health believe in withholding the 2nd dose, keeping it in abeyance for those who've gotten the 1st dose, but this is public health trying to make a manufacturing and logistics decision, which is not public health's wheelhouse.

here in the U.S. i think these decisions about public health and our events that matter a lot to resort communities are more nuanced. if we are able to vaccinate over half our population by the first half of the year, what is the reasoning behind withholding permits for races in august thru november? it may be different in canada for a number of reasons, but i would be shocked if we're not racing full tilt by september, with a crammed calendar of events taking place beginning in july and ending in november.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

an anecdote...I went to an Ikea last Saturday in oak creek Wisconsin. It was 100% above board, legal, and in compliance with local health 'guidelines' set forth in a blue county in a blue state. still an extremely dumb idea.

There were easily 3-4000 people, milling about, indoors. Almost all wore masks, but we each went about our way, each funneling through the showroom labyrinth, 3-5 abreast, before congregating again en masse in the checkout line. All in the name of modular furniture and cheap homewares.

The same milwaukee county that is home to that particular Ikea will not permit 100 person outdoor 5ks right now based on guidelines limiting course density and the optics of outdoor events. Neither will my hometown/ county of Madison/ Dane County, home of Ironman, WI.

Inconsistent/ Incoherent public health guidelines (and their application) by large cities and counties would make me bet against any races that aren't in mid or small town venues in q1/q2. Q3 is questionable. But the pain in hospitality, event production, and tourism very real. I suspect restrictive policies will thaw here as the weather does.

as we all know, in-person shopping for modular furniture is of vital national import.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Just to clarify, the vaccine trials did not assess how much less likely vaccinated individuals are to infect others. I think we can assume that there's some reduction in infectiousness. But we don't know for sure, we are still waiting for data, and right now I would prefer to act as if there is no reduction in infectiousness.

Also, we think the vaccine is about 90% efficacious, so don't forget that you could be in the 10% of people for whom it is not efficacious, and someone you run into could be as well.

Can you help educate us on how some of this logic works and qualify it please with who you are and credentials (I am not questioning it, but its better if the statement is from a qualified identifiable person given all the misinformation that can flow around on internet message boards)

Question 1:

If the vaccine is 90% effective, does this mean there is a 90% chance that I will not get Covid19. If I don't have it, I can't give it to someone else. There is a 10% chance I get it which means I can give it to someone else but the chance of giving it to someone else dropped by 90% compared to not vaccinated.

Question 2


Or is it 90% effective in ensuring that I don't get sick, but 0 percent chance of preventing me from getting it to some degree when I get exposed enough. So once I get it, how badly does it hammer me? But the vaccine itself is trying to minimize the impact on me, not shut the door for the virus on my body. If I get it I have 90% chance of not getting sick, but I still have it and can give to others?

Is this what you are getting at? I just assumed that those vaccinated will not give it to others just like those of us who got vaccinated from small pox could no longer give it to others since we would not get sick from it (but that was a totally different mechanism).

The spring mountain bike racing season started last weekend in Phoenix. The first race in the MBAA series was held over a 2 day period. Probably 600-700 total entrants in all categories. I did the 43 mile race - for almost the entire race I could not see another competitor. It was well organized with masks required in the start chute, athletes spaced out, double the normal starting groups, social distancing in check in, scanners for check in, no awards ceremony, team areas with lots of space, etc. The Cactus Cup, a big local event, will be in March. There will be a local tri on Feb 28 with on road and off road categories (Iceman Tri). Is it safe? I don't know but I hope so. AZ has one of the highest case rates in the country.

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Andrew Inkpen

Unfortunately, OP may still be able to contract and spread COVID-19, even though they received both doses.

The studies tout a 90% efficacy rate with this vaccine, but we will have to wait and see how that translates to real world efficiency.

My guess would be SOME towns will return to regular racing in the spring as usual (NOT IM) if you are willing to take the risk. I am not.

Some towns there peope at bars, restaurants etc. Zero social distancing nor masks required

I have a Master's degree in public health, and I'm a current PhD candidate. Actually, I am not an epidemiologist, which is the field that would deal directly with this (assuming they are infectious disease epidemiologists, anyway; note that not all of them specialize in infectious diseases). My bread and butter is clinical effectiveness, though, so I understand the basics.

In the randomized trials, the vaccine arm was around 90% less likely to get COVID than the placebo arm. Here's one of the RCTs. I haven't gone deep into this one or others, but in this one, "to get COVID" means that you had COVID symptoms and you got a positive PCR test (they stick a swab into your nose, then they stick that into a machine that replicates the virus' RNA or whatever it is, basically testing for an active infection). So, this is confirmed, symptomatic COVID.

So, to be really precise, it may be that you could still get asymptomatic COVID, not get any symptoms, but you still have enough of a viral load (amount of virus in, say, your nasal passages) to spread it. I don't have any clinical training, but I would assume that if you have the vaccine, your immune system responds much faster and more effectively to the virus. So, it stands to reason that your viral load would be lower if you got exposed to the virus. Maybe its near zero, and thus you are basically incapable of infecting anyone! But maybe not. Basically, does the vaccine just block symptoms, or does it actually make you shed so little virus that you aren't infectious?

We don't know this part. All we know is that compared to someone not vaccinated, you are 90% or more less likely to get symptomatic COVID.

Thus, out of an abundance of caution, once they vaccinate me, I intend to assume I could still get an asymptomatic but contagious infection. Naturally, I could also get symptomatic and infectious as well. I'm not going to live like a hermit for the rest of time, because nobody can. I would still urge people to be as cautious as they can sustain for the next year. We'll know more as time goes by, and we will certainly be able to lift the restrictions at some point. It's just that we have lost over 380,000 people here in the US.

Thanks, I think fundamentally what you explained confirms what I understood, but wanted to see the angle you were coming from. Until all of this is deployed in the real world, in decent volume we won't know the full effect, and thus I also agree that we should still maintain all the measures between ourselves in high risk scenarios. But I think that once I am vaccinated I am going to feel like I literally won't be able to give it to anyone given that the probability will go way down AND I will still behave like I have it, until its gone to the level in society of any other infectious disease that we all live with (and in theory we all spread them, its just not that big a deal and not hurting anyone with high probability of bad outcome)

Here’s hoping USMS Open Water Nationals happen in TX in May! That’s all I want to do this year.

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"The person on top of the mountain didn't fall there." - unkown

also rule 5

My local club here in Western Australia had a race the weekend before Christmas and another in Busselton on Sunday. No masks or covid restrictions here. Well there is no covid so there’s that too...

Unfortunately, this does bring up another issue. I don't know what the end game for COVID looks like. One infectious diseases person I know peripherally on Facebook said she doesn't expect we can eliminate COVID in the US (this means the disease no longer circulates within certain communities, even if it does still exist somewhere on the planet, e.g. I was dismayed to hear that the US just barely held on to its measles elimination status in 2019, and some European countries lost that status) in the next 5 years or so. It would be possible with a lot of money and political will, and we definitely haven't shown the latter.

Remember that COVID's basic parameters - how infectious it is, how sick it makes you, and how likely it is to kill you - are like the flu virus if you put that virus on Lance Armstrong's regimen. We do have an advantage in that the COVID vaccine is much more efficacious than the flu vaccine. However, COVID does mutate. It's in the same class of virus (I think) as the flu virus, and we know the flu virus mutates, and we have seen some significant COVID mutations already. The current expectation is that the vaccine should be equally efficacious against the new UK strain. This may change, although nobody hopes that this happens.

In light of the above, my read of my acquaintance's statement is that it's likely to be quite some time before we should not worry about it (more than we would worry about, say, the flu). Due to fatigue, we may accept the risk, but we will be losing more people than we should.

All this is complex @$%*. This is why we train masters and doctoral level public health people. This is why it is worth it to train them (well, people like me). But unfortunately, it's one thing to have the experts, and it's another thing to convince society to go along. And also, experts aren't perfect either, it takes time for knowledge to disseminate (e.g. public health experts in the US initially were initially skeptical of masks because no direct experience with SARS, but public health experts in East Asia had experience with them), sometimes we're wrong, sometimes the models aren't perfect, etc.

I'm optimistic and really hope that will be the case but I certainly won't be shocked if it's not. We've made great progress in 10 months with the vaccine, but until most are vaccinated there are still a lot of unknowns. Go back and read the comments here in March and April regarding C19. Most didn't do a good job in predicting the future six months out. I know we have a lot more knowledge of C19 than we did then but...

I plan to sign up for the local tri series this summer as soon as registration opens at the end of the month. I plan to get vaccinated as soon as I'm given the opportunity.

Well I think you hit it on the head with this as most of this is optics and politics right now. In everyone’s defense though it cannot be easy with a virus we still don’t know a lot about. I am starting to believe the secondary and maybe even primary cost of covid is social isolation and not having races does not help with that.

But if course I can go to IKEA:).

As expected, certainly not in mid March at PR70.3 2021.

Announcement just came to my email....

The 2021 Puerto Rico 70.3 was just cancelled yesterday, so it seems the 2021 cancellations have begun in the U.S. I'm glad they gave us 2+ months notice.

I'm in Kentucky and the Governor's Office says vaccination of 16-40 year olds is scheduled for Summer of 2021. In other words,the bulk of the population won't be vaccinated until Fall of 2021.

Personally I won't feel comfortable racing until I'm vaccinated. Why anyone would is questionable at best. I'm also hoping most others at the event will be vaccinated.

With that said, I have an IM 70.3 on July 20th and another one on October 23rd. I'm hoping IM defers races until September 2021. I'd like to see them get ahead of it and announce something to be proactive. It would help out the athletes.

ugh what a bummer but understandable. We did this race in 2017 and LOVED it!! (before Maria). They have been through so much and I hope this race will be postponed at some point. I can't say enough good things about our race experience in PR that year. It's a gem!

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Death is easy....peaceful. Life is harder.

It means there is a 90% chance that you will not get covid symptoms. That does not mean that you cannot be a carrier.



The second thing. They looked at if people in the trial got sick. Then they checked to see if the sick people got the vaccine or the placebo. They did not check to see if people in close contact with those who received the vaccine got sick.

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Janyne

I'm going out on a limb, but I'm 95% sure that IM Canada will not take place this year. It's late August, but still, there won't be enough people vaccinated by then.

What's everyone's thoughts on the chances of placid going off in late July?
A month ago I was pretty confident but this slow roll out has me wondering.

I think it's going to be a close call for July races in the northeast of the US. I'm doing Musselman 70.3 on July 11 and a little worried I may not be vaccinated by then. I just heard on NRP that Biden is planning on this huge rollout to get people vaccinated quicker. He mentioned hiring 100K health pros (if I heard that correctly) and setting up more centers to get vaccinated. Will it really happen? Who knows? We have never had to vaccinate an entire population in the modern world and govt doesn't always move as quickly as we need and desire. So again, it's so hard to tell what will happen in July.

I think if we all want to race, let's all do our best to be safe and keep others safe. Goes w/o saying but it's really crazy that 10 months into this pandemic, many parts of the world are on fire with this virus.

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Death is easy....peaceful. Life is harder.

The situation is not as unique and dire as you might think. Don't forget that we routinely vaccinate about 50% of the population for flu every year. That is around 160M doses. To get to that magic, theoretical 80% target with a double-dose vaccination is around 510M doses. It is a big number, but not radically bigger than our BAU today. So, it is a matter of extending the infrastructure and processes we already have versus creating something all new.

It is mathematically possible to get to 80% by June with the processes already underway, which is encouraging. (We are about doubling the number of doses administered each week over the prior week.)

Hey I hope you are correct. I want to be vaccinated asap and want to race safely. That's a great point about the flu vaccine. We never get the flu or flu shot so it's not something I think about (we are hermits).

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Death is easy....peaceful. Life is harder.

I was thinking about this larger big picture of what part of human activity resumes with what part of the population vaccinated. In some areas we had racing with new protocols with zero vaccination. Depending on how hospitals are doing there, they would be the first candidate locations for racing. Then other locations should be possible especially when everyone over 70 is vaccinated. Other locations will probably want to err towards letting any business happen until younger age groups are also vaccinated.

For example UAE appears to be on track to vaccinate 50% of population by March. They have had racing going on through the winter already without a vaccine. Maybe 70.3 Dubai happens in March based on some rumours. Here in Canada, depending on who we talk to, those over 70 should be done by May. If so, hospitals should be fairly liberated of overload by May, but the question is what restrictions are removed when hospitals are empty from Covid19 by June (hopefully by then hospitals are back to normal for other medical procedures since a massive backlog has already built up)....so we may not be able to get back to less restrictions until some of the backlog is cleared too.

IMHO, this reflects the #1 problem in the US, and no one is talking about it. In the US, we only vaccinate 50% of the population and that is with constant and ongoing positive reinforcement. So, getting 80% of the population to volunteer for 2 doses is a huge incremental mountain to climb. My gut feel is we will call it a day when we get around 50% immunized. Either that, or US and private industry will force vaccinations by restricting people from society. This would really freak people out.

Wrong. The number one problem is people like 70Trigirl that don't get vaccines like the flu shot because they don't think they need it.

Unless you are in no contact with others you could be at risk of contracting and spreading a virus.

I am confused; what do you think I am wrong about? It looks like we are in total agreement.

Wrong. The number one problem is willingness to pretend there actually IS some simple number one problem; rather there is a major societal dysfunction that's being encouraged.

The tolerance in society for "anti-science" views, the willingness of many to accept assertions made without evidence because they like what's being said, the general increase in willingness to pretend facts are optional. These are the central issues from which almost all else stems.
Anti-vaxers - Yep
Religious zealots and extremists - Yep
Climate change deniers - Yep
Nationalist extremists - Yep
"Patriots" - Yep
Sports obsessives - Yep
Bigots - Yep
Those who think the US is the best country in the world - Yep
Those who think the US is the worst country in the world - Yep
....not a the complete list, obviously.

Haha, if you look at all of the problems at once, it is terrifying. I like my bubble of one problem at a time...

Does anyone have a sense of whether the two months advanced notice is unique to Puerto Rico race or is it a new Ironman policy? Traditionally races have been cancelled about a month or less before the race. I am struggling to train for IMTX because I'm doubtful about its prospects, but also hesitant to stop training in case it goes forward because I don't want to lose my (rather costly) registration. I wouldn't really mind if they pulled the plug early just so I could get out of this limbo. I'm a deferral from last year's cancelled race, so this is likely to be my second year of training for an IMTX that doesn't happen.

On the other hand, if you look at them in isolation, you miss seeing the real, and common, cause. The positive to draw from this is that you don't need to solve all these problems separately, you just need to encourage society to think "properly" and they'll gradually all take care of themselves. Unfortunately, in at least one case, it'll may be very hard to prevent enormous long term global damage even if it were possible to solve the problem some time soon.....

Where are the outbreaks from the races that did happen when there was no vaccine (not a direct comment to you tho your post was sorta on these lines)?

Meaning why would anything with the vaccine impact racing in 1H21?

Why would we be worried about overwhelming the system when that hasn’t been shown to happen (at least that I’m not aware of).

I get the vaccine can give everyone a sense of additional security. But don’t see why it’s needed to race.

What do you mean by "why would anything with the vaccine impact racing"? I can't figure out what that means.

Also do you have a specific region in mind when you ask about outbreaks at races, and if so, when racing ended there, what were the levels of Covid-19 and typical adherence to PPE and social distancing precautions at the time?

Just to be clear, I'm waiting eagerly for my turn to get one of the covid19 vaccines. I'm not anti-vaccine, I just haven't gotten the flu shot in the past since I'm super healthy and live in a place that is not densely populated and haven't gotten the flu since maybe I was a kid. I can't even remember when I got the flu last. It was ages. I hardly ever get sick. I have gotten a few minor colds in the last decade, both right before a big race where my immune system was low but got better quickly. I don't consider myself the problem and don't represent those who are not going to get the covid vaccine. Please don't throw around judgements towards people you know nothing about. BTW - I'm vegan AF since 2007 and did 2 years mostly raw quite a while ago.

Again, I certainly will get the covid vaccine!!!!! It can't come soon enough!!!!

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Death is easy....peaceful. Life is harder.

I doubt anyone will have a special insight. From my perspective the problem re:IMLP is that accommodations are generally pay upfront/no cancellation. I’m registered, but can’t bring myself to book anything.

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Dimond Bikes Superfan

I agree. So much so that I needed to post my agreement.

Any race, any region. Where has there been a connection between a race and that race stressing the system - define system however you want (hospital capacity, ems workers, medical supplies, etc).

It seemed like a legit concern early on but as events have happened including challenge, BWR and Ironman, seems like that fear didn’t play out.

So why do we (collectively as a society) continue to think it will?

And I’m asking because I haven’t heard or seen it but I’m usually a step behind... I don’t understand why the vaccine allows us to race vs not race in 1H2021.

How many regions have mandatory quarintine time for anyone that travels? I went to Challenge Daytona in Florida and was disappointed in their registration format as the only covid issue I could see as an issue (it was mask mandatory on site for all people). People had to stand in long line for 1+ hr waiting to register. Everyone had masks on but it was certainly not very covid friendly procedure imo.


Everything else about that race I thought was very covid friendly. They did have stands by the water that people watched and some people were all sitting close to others. Masks were mandatory on site, which is good procedure.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

I roughly support what you are saying. But furthermore here in Canada 95 percent of deaths, 69 percent of ICU admissions and 63 percent of hospitalizations are from only 20 percent of Covid19 cases . This 20 percent are those over 60. Once over 60 is vaccinated looking at this data compiled by our federal govt that is available on health Canada's website, it seems that racing and other business and recreational activities can be done in an environment where impact on the medical system will be far lower.

But even without vaccinating in some venues all kinds of biz and recreation may happen inclusive of triathlons. But where I live I seriously doubt that any restrictions get lifted until hospitals get a break. Doc's are all over TV explaining how spread thin they are (rightfully so) and until the medical system clears and it's proven they won't be overwhelmed again pretty sure there is zero line of sight to racing.

Regions with tight travel controls and low infection rates will probably also have had no races, so little chance of evidence one way or the other. Regions with broad proliferation of infections and limited control with limited ability to conduct infection tracking, are unlikely to be making a fuss about a race, when they've plenty other issues more frequently occurring events to worry about. The fact you haven't heard about a cases being traced to races doesn't mena races are safe, or should proceed. I've seen and heard a lot of talk over the last 9 months or so with assertions that activities not demonstrated to have caused infections should be assumed safe. That's absurd, reductionist nonsense. Absence of evidence that a thing is true, does not prove it false. Do you have proof that races will NOT provide a significant risk of infection spread?

I think the concern is legitimate because any assembly of people, especially involving mixing otherwise separate populations, presents an increased risk. Yes, the fact it's outdoors will help. The fact the athletes will be solo out on the road will help. Distancing controls will help. But I don't think there is sufficient need to introduce the risk in the first place. And regardless of the athletes interaction at the event, there will still be significant travel, assembly of spectators (some of whom will not be cautious), and other activities increased by holding such an event.

The UAE curve was quite flat up to Xmas time frame at 1000 cases per day, but in the last three weeks it has grown to 3000 cases per day (on 10M population). To date they have only had 750 deaths:

https://www.worldometers.info/...nited-arab-emirates/


So there economy had been inclined to move on to business with various Covid19 protocols.


Racing with Covid19 protocols has been going on there with no vaccine starting in November. You can also travel there with a test before leaving and a test at airport (from what I understand). But with cases going up, I heard there is worry that racing may be affected.

Very good point that not proving something doesn’t makes it true.

In Ireland we were at about 200 cases a day before Christmas - the best in Europe. After slight relaxation of restrictions over Christmas (restrictions were still in place) caused a massive spike to 8000 cases a day. With escalation of restrictions since late December, the numbers are gradually dropping again, I think we're at about 3000 now, but deaths may not have peaked yet since they generally lag infection by a few weeks. It doesn't take a lot of complacency to do a lot of damage.
I'm curious about the vaccination policy in the UAE. You mentioned a young employee having been vaccinate already, while most countries are starting with older or vulnerable people. The UAE is not known for being a very egalitarian society. Do you know if nationality and race have an impact on vaccination availability?

Jnags7 wrote:

Very good point that not proving something doesn’t makes it true.

Where did I say that? That would be a very silly "point".

I said "Absence of evidence that a thing is true, does not prove it false."
And if you legitimately think that means the same thing, you're rather confused.

Are you trying to suggest the burden of proof lies with those who say there is a risk, and not those who say everything is fine?

I haven't had the flu since middle school and get the shot annually because I don't want to get sick and unknowingly spread it to family and co-workers. I haven't had a cold in years.

I'm glad you're healthy,vegan and pro Covid19 vaccine. A flu shot is always a good idea as all vaccines are imo.

Like I said I'm not anti vaccine or anti flu shot. If I worked with other people and had family/relatives to worry about, then I might consider making the effort to seek one out in my rural world. My husband and I live very remotely off-the-grid alone with one family member left who lives far away from us. We don't have kids. We have both been remote workers for years. We don't like being around crowds or the general public. We were social distancing well before covid19 and well before there was a name for it. We are not like everyone else. Doesn't mean we are opposed to getting a flu shot in the future. But most likely we won't because we are basically very healthy hermits.

I do think it's a good idea for regular every-day people who are around a lot of other people should get the flu shot especially those in cities who live on top of each other.

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Death is easy....peaceful. Life is harder.