DFW_Tri wrote:
null-and-void wrote:
For the life of me (no pun intended), I cannot imagine why anyone would be willing to do a race this fall, especially in a region in which the Covid is rampant, and with no proper testing or contact tracing. Even if one is willing to assume the additional risk of racing at this time, there still is the problem of potentially endangering lives at the race venue, at home, and points in-between. This is the first season since 1979 that I have not raced. I miss racing a lot; I also understand that others have committed a considerable amount of time and expense to prepare for their races. But this, I think, does not outweigh basic concepts of epidemiology and social responsibility.You cant imagine any reason? I have no issue if you want to skip. I am. And you can certainly argue that is the socially responsible thing to do. But, when I see words like “rampant”, you need to tap the brakes a bit. We should take obviously take it seriously. But, to put it in perspective, there are ~29 million people in Texas and 500,000 (reported) covid cases, so ~ 1.7% of our population has the virus. McClennan county has 4,500 cases and 256,000 people in the county, also about 1.7%. Let’s be factual if we are going to discuss what you are labeling “rampant”.
I'll take a slightly different view. I think the virus is spreading rampant, and we have no contact tracing going on. No one around here gets tested unless they need to go to the hospital. Locally, I'm being told medical staff fills out the tracing questionnaire, but they expect a grad student working on his thesis to be the next to see it. Given two more months of this, and I can easily see a case where this wave has passed, or we are so deep into a wave of cases that cancelling the race wouldn't help anyways. By this same thought, being at the race is probably less risky than any other day to day activity.
I just checked Texas Tech, and they will limit capacity of the stadium to 25%. if Baylor does the same thing, the football game will be bringing almost 12,000 spectators to the game that same weekend. Will the triathlon even more the risk needle there? At some point, it's like yelling about people speeding on the highway, but when you are the only one doing 55 mph, it isn't really helping.