Zoe Bell

Its complicated.
the economics of cancelling are HUGE

Siouxie

The potential loss of life worldwide is HUGE - which is more important?

dave_j

So it'll be your fault then..... Oooww I'd run away now....

bats

Do Public Health give advice on this? What to do, whether or not to proceed?

Zoe Bell

we have taken advice from Toronto public health, Health Canada , the CDC and anyone else we can get our hands on.
we don't cancel for flu, which by my stats you are about 100 times more likely to contract

bats

Yes the flu comparison is valid. When I read news about COVID and reactions to it, Hazmat etc. I'm puzzled as the why we never do the same for flu. Is it solely because there's a vaccine for flu? Or is the new virus more contagious/infectious?

Zoe Bell

i've been looking at stats because I'm curious. CoVid-19 seems to have a 4% fatality rate, but from whta i can see this is vastly inflated by deaths in China. It seems that if you get it outside of China you are pretty much guaranteed to survive.
interesting , not quite sure why that is though.

from what i can see CoVid is about 100 times more lethal than flu is on average, but about you are about 100 times less likely to catch it, putting the risks at a comparable level IMO

we've done the sensible stuff, increased cleaning, enough hand sanitiser to drown an elephant etc etc.

I managed to source unicorn hand sanitiser with glitter in it for myself, I'm especially proud of that

spouse of scouse

Be careful, if the conference attendees see your glitter sanitiser they'll all want the same

Good luck with it Zoe, I've been involved in logistics for big conferences and know the work that goes into them.

Siouxie

https://www.who.int/emergencies/dise...nical-guidance
https://www.who.int/docs/default-sou...rsn=1ac4218d_2

Nand

Italy had 3 cases last Friday, they have 228 monday night with 7 dead according to CNN. The origin is not known but the cases seem to all have been originated in Italy.

In Milan shelves in food stores are empty of canned goods and dry goods like bisquits. Towns are under strict quarentine and many schools are closed.

It seems to spread fast and/or is unknown because of not testing or lying in wait as asymptomatic cases.

I am going with 'better safe than sorry'. Regardless of the expense.

Do what you will, take care and be safe.

Nand

Honestly I think they should close for flu if is at epidemic levels as it is here in France. Everyone is sick atm and who knows if people who sneeze and cough have flu or SARS Cov2 or not?

Its scary really. Diabetes has been mentioned as giving practically a death sentence if its combined with the SARS Cov2 virus. So many people are diabetic or pre diabetic these days.

I'm sorry you feel shamed. I don't think people are being rude to you, we are all in the same boat about how are we to deal with this?

scrubbedexpat091

7th case in BC confirmed, a man in his 40's who was in close contact with the woman previously confirmed last week who had traveled from Iran. The man is isolated at home.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...iran-1.5473758

Zoe Bell

the problem is thought that it is actually economically irresponsible for us to cancel the event. And i don;t mean for us as an organisation.
I'm not exaggerating when i say global scale contracts are won or lost onsite, gdps of small countries are boosted, we would be irresponsible to push that kind of economic impact on our attendees.
we will host , make everyone as safe as we can. We don't force people to attend

bats

l have read an article, sorry I can't recall where, that argues that cancellations of events won't help prevent spread and as you say will have a huge economic effect on a global scale. They talked of supply shortages too.

We should our hands frequently, use hand sanitiser, don't touch our face with our ands, don't shake hands. Probably cut back on random snogging. I do love the idea of sparkly hand sanitiser, you can see that you've covered all of your hands and others can see that they are clean.

somebody upthread was conflating COVID-19 with SARS, this is not SARS.

Jingsamichty

Is this really something so very different to run-of-the-mill but previously unsensationalised respiratory infections? With an apparent fatality rate of 2-4% it hardly seems worse than a "normal" flu strain. Is all the panic and lockdowns really necessary?