It is impossible to predict at this stage. It depends on local politics combined with trends on cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. Right now, TN's hospitalizations are very high and trending up. Their cases and deaths are high but may be stabilizing. If the city and RD need to make the go/no-go decision in mid April, the trends and statistics now are not relevant. If the race was in February, I would guess no way. But it all depends on what things do over the next three months.

Rough guess is 50/50. On the one hand, Chatt is one of the more likely area's in TN to cancel an event. On the other hand, you can look at numbers in TN and see that there isn't a huge following on restrictions.

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Watch the vaccination rates. A lot of states are posting those numbers. Once a state hits 75-80% (Avg right now there is about 30% of people saying they will not take the vaccine) they will call that good. Until then it will be a balance in the numbers of new infections vs the vaccine rate (needles stuck in arms, not vaccine delivered to be injected) that the decision makers will use to decide usually by county in each state. I can't speak for all 50 states but that's seem to be what most are looking at/planning for.

(FYI I'm in that business at a high level in a state)

Here is a good article that is updating vaccine doses distributed and administered by state.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/...elbNViWef08A84GglW2E

I do not think the overall vaccination level of the nation will be a material factor until the end of the year. It almost certainly will not be a factor by May. We only vaccinate 50% of the population for Flu, and that has the benefit of long-term, continuous positive reinforcement. We will need to administer over 3x as many doses as an annual flu campaign to hit the theoretical 80% target. Our biggest challenge as a nation will just be getting people to go out and get them... twice.

Training like it is 100% guaranteed.

No one can possibly predict the odds at this point. Better to be prepared and have it cancelled than to show up unprepared on race day. Worst case, that fitness will translate over to summer races that are more likely

This to the MAX.

I am registered for two 70.3 races, and I want to do the WC. I will register for every available Oly and Sprint race I can find. I will train as if everything will happen until it doesn't. (I am not planning to register for races in areas that have lower probability, like CA, MD, NY, etc.)

Right now there's still an in-person marathon scheduled to happen in March in Chattanooga. I'd watch whether that event happens or not.

I agree with the others about training as if it will happen.

Your looking at it wrong......nation wide I would agree.......but locals make the decisions that's why I said "by county". No state is looking at national rates to make decisions. Counties easily hit 70% where others only hit 30%. If HIM chatty is in one of the counties that have a high inoculation rate that will drive their decision to issue a license/permit to race. And the WashPo numbers are wrong for my state (FYI)

I think we are mostly on the same page. I agree that localities will not care that much about national numbers to make local decisions. And, the decisions are a combination of all the metrics combined with local politics.

Out of curiosity, have you seen a better source for state (or even better, county-level) vaccination data? The WaPo article was just the first one that I found to track, but I have not looked for sources of more accessible data yet.

The only issue with that is regarding our local politics... I produce the Chattanooga Marathon, along with the Chattanooga IM events. My marathon is set to take place under the current mayor and his administration in March. We will have a new mayor a few weeks after that event so I wouldn't say that's a great barometer to use. Obviously the local political climate is only one of a handful of factors in these decisions.

It will happen because Tennesseans are tough af

Go to the state you're interested in, find their health department website and check it out. Several states are showing that data. Of course each state is located in different places so each search can be different.

Enough with that tripe. Every person thinks their state is tough AF... and the races still get cancelled. Were the people of Tennessee weak AF last year when all the IM branded races were cancelled?

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Their superior immune systems seem to be struggling to ward off the virus...

Every IM race Facebook page last year...

Dozens/hundreds of posts about how <insert state name here> are tough and we will race because that's how the people of <insert state name here> roll.

Race gets cancelled...

Then dozens of posts basically doing this...

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