It's 8 months away. A bit hard to make accurate predictions now. There is a good chance it will be cancelled, but I think there is still a pretty good chance it will take place.

If a vaccine takes a year or two as predicted, there is no way NZ will keep their borders closed that long, it would destroy their economy.
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If coronavirus is not over but under control, they may look at switching it to somewhere else if the borders where still closed. Maybe Australia as it will have to be somewhere that is warm at that time of year

Can’t just move an event that large with that short a timeframe. Just not logistically possible.

Moving the actual race isn't that hard at all,it is having all the athletes change flights,hotel bookings and visas that is the issue.

I get what you are saying and the reasoning makes sense. But on the other hand: IM announced they will be allocating Taupo slots through their virtual races. People who will get these slots will likely start planning their trip to NZ and I doubt IM would keep on allocating slots if they already knew the event was compromised. What I'm thinking is that they're probably in touch with local authorities and if they're still promoting the event, it may be because for the moment they think there are good chances it will take place. But that's just total guessing...

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Tell that to the americans

Yeah I've got a feeling it will be cancelled too. I had already decided not to go and got a partial refund prior to the pandemic and am now feeling like I shot myself in the foot. Not only could I had possibly already secured a spot at St George for 2021, but it would have been paid for already too.

Lots of time.....New Zealand will realize that they can't torpedo their own economy forever once the rest of the world gets back to work.

Wuhan opened their subways this weeked. No reason why the rest of the world won't be able to eventually go that way too. It will just take time and we have time.

If New Zealand wants to put their entire citizenry into a depression while the rest of the world is climbing out of a recession, that's their choice, but they just ran IM New Zealand in the middle of the big Corona virus international ramp, so if anyone has precedent on how to run a race while this virus is floating around (and yes, they got lucky), then its Taupo.

Dev

When IMNZ was held on March 7th 2020 NZ only had 5 cases of Covid-19. NZ was slow out of the blocks getting it. If you were at IMNZ you would know that there was (in retrospect) very few spread mitigation strategies used and it was not at all well managed - it was just luck. If you weren’t there then please don’t argue about this point (hint -I was there).

Wuhan may have opened its subways but this is only possible due to the fact that China has closed its borders to all foreign nationals to prevent a second wave.

The global economy is torpedoed I am afraid but NZ will do comparatively ok. Although tourism represented some 6%! of GDP some of this will be replaced by domestic travel. Food production and export will take over again as the main economy driver. With no migrant workers to work in food production there will be a reallocation of the labour force there and also to construction as the government has indicated this will be used as stimulus.

I do find it strange that people - mostly Americans - are still in denial about what the global reality is and how long the whole world is screwed for as we enter a global depression ( not recession).

Firstly just to be clear because some on this forum elsewhere, are trying to look at the glass half full with a desire to get back to business as usual, does not mean we are unrealistic. Its not completely unrealistic that there will be events in the Northern Hemisphere fall. Roland Garros has rescheduled for Sep, US Open in still on, London Marathon moved to the fall (and the list goes on). There is no reason for Ironman to cancel a Taupo 70.3 worlds nor Kona YET based on today's incomplete data and global situation.

WRT to your comment on Americans, the entire world economy will be thanking America for pulling the world back to some semblance of normal at some point (and its not tomorrow....but they will be able to do a new Marshall Plan like no one else can. China will just look after self interest). I don't think it is fair to just throw Americans in a broad brush on the global reality front. It is a massive country with 330M differen opinions that neither you nor I can categorize (by the way, I am not American).

Mitigation strategy was the 500 ml bottle of hand sanitizer at each table at the welcome dinner. :)

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More important did you Kona qual? If so, best of luck and hope Kona happens if not, they will roll you over to 2021 for sure.

Thanks, Dev - did get my KQ at Taupo. Not that it matters too much right now, though, given the state of the things...

Stay well!

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No No....your Kona qual absolutely matters. Otherwise let's just tell slowman to shut down this forum and we can go back to watching CNN, BBC and CCTV all day!!! Congrats and I hope you get to race this year, but you can keep pushing for next year. I was not fast enough for a rolldown at Dubai70.3 for Taupo Worlds. I need to run around 10 min faster, but on my rehab, swim and bike are fine for my age group.

Lots of time.....New Zealand will realize that they can't torpedo their own economy forever once the rest of the world gets back to work.

Wuhan opened their subways this weeked. No reason why the rest of the world won't be able to eventually go that way too. It will just take time and we have time.


Dev,

I love your sense of optimism.

I'm no expert on this and this is speculation, but I have heard leading Public Health People say that the next 2 - 3 weeks will be critical to figure out where this is all headed. in many parts of the world they are still on the steepest part of the up-slope for cases/deaths!!

The other big issue, is how far down on the down-slope, do you get, before you give the "all clear" signal? And even then, you are going to have a lot of people, who will be skeptical, worried and perhaps fearful, of social mixing for some time.

In truth, it's going to be a long time before we get back to "normal" or to a new "normal" - whatever that is.

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"In her media conference today, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said she was not ruling out keeping border restrictions in force until a vaccine for Covid-19 was developed." while these are soft words, i think they are preparing us for the reality of what is likely to come.

this is a rapidly evolving and unprecedented situation so you would be brave to make any predictions, what little talk there has been here of the longer term has tended to be around maintaining closed borders (to people, not goods) until such time as the pandemic is controlled one way or another.

until a couple of weeks ago, covid was barely a factor in NZ, just a few people returning from overseas. since then we have leapt to 589 cases and gone into a near complete lockdown to contain it. it is worth noting that only about 10 of those cases are believed to be community transmission - the vast majority are directly linked to overseas travel so closing our borders has real potential to stamp the virus out here. yes, that will hurt our economy but having large numbers of fatalaties and long-term domestic restrictions like much of the rest of the world would hurt more.

air nz is talking about becoming largely a domestic airline "for the foreseeable future", losing 2/3 of their revenue which comes from international tourism

so yeah, while hesitant to make any predictions i think it unlikely that a massive event primarily of people from around the world (particularly the hard hit europe and us) will be allowed to go ahead this year. i'll be very happy if we are able to have domestic events in that timeframe which might include 70.3 taupo but i certainly wouldn't consider it a world champs (unless of course i was able to podium)

A lot of the actions have been taken based on inadequate information; almost a knee jerk reaction perhaps. There is a lot unknown about this virus that has generated a lot of fear and a race amongst governments to do what they think right. Hindsight is always right so we should not be arguing the merits or otherwise of actions that governments have or have not taken.

This was published online here in New Zealand this morning - https://www.stuff.co.nz/...lly-match-the-threat

We do need to look at the measures objectively as more information is gathered. Governments simply do not have enough knowledge to do anything else.

It will be interesting to see how things unfold in Sweden.

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Well, I have a PhD :-)

And if there is no vaccine? We've never been able to come up with one for a coronavirus before, only time will tell if we can actually make one for this one. Can't count on that possibility

indeed, it seems everyone is pinning their hopes on this but we may have to fall back to developing herd immunity which will involve a lot of deaths. while SARS and other recent outbreaks seem to have died out naturally, the sprea of covid suggests it will not disapear the same way but we really don't know

i'm not sure whether this is the correct/best approach, its just the one we look to be taking. there is so much about this situation that is unknown to anyone, let alone me, that only hindsight will really be able to judge. it is quite possible that the aproach will change in time when we see how things evolve but the current outlook is for ongoing isolation at some level

at the least i think we will need to contain it to levels the health service can manage which means no big international events which would almost certainly lead to a dramatic spike in cases, until we either have a vaccine or herd immunity, either of which will take a long time (months or years)

until a couple of weeks ago, covid was barely a factor in NZ, just a few people returning from overseas. since then we have leapt to 589 cases and gone into a near complete lockdown to contain it.


Not an expert, but this is what the experts are saying - that 2 - 3 week time period is CRITICAL with this virus. Main reason, the incubation period is particularly long and people can have mild symptoms and be spreading the virus and not even know it. Hence the 2 week self-isolation.

Just go back 2 - 3 weeks, in a country like the U/S. where it's starting to tip into an uncontrolled state, and it was just starting to make the news, and not to get all political, about it, but the U.S, President was blowing it all off 2 - 3 weeks ago as a non-concern!

Going forward months down the road - you are right, now one knows EXACTLY where we will be in 2, 4, 8 months.

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

if it does go ahead and visitors are allowed back into nz, i believe it highly likely that in november any visitors to nz should be prepared to spend the first 14 days in nz in self isolation in nz.

if it does go ahead and visitors are allowed back into nz, i believe it highly likely that in november any visitors to nz should be prepared to spend the first 14 days in nz in self isolation in nz.



Indeed. This is all DOWN-SLOPE stuff, but most of the world right now is in major UP-SLOPE and no one REALLY knows where the peak will be, let along WHEN we will get to the down-slope. Then of course all those down-slope questions will need to be asked, where right now, there are now answers for!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Interestingly Air New Zealand have announced that they're going to be a domestic airline for the foreseeable future. 6 months? A year? Really seems like it'll be tough for Taupo 2020 to happen. Hope it does (as I live here).

HAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA Brilliant!

Some key differences in Sweden vs countries like the UK, USA, Canada, Australia.
- the demographic is wuite different (many more live as singles, very few extended-family households

- a huge amount more 'self control' and personal responsibility in the population

- larger proportion can work remotely anyway

- a lot less fheckwhits ignoring good advice than in any of the Anglophone countries.