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This was an experiment. It could well be that dofferent clubs were asked to use different methods so as a comparison could be made.

As for close mixing in queues outside, then the simple solution to that is for masks to be worn until you are in your seat. I know that a lot of people think that by wearing masks they are protecting themselves, but the opposite is true - by wearing a mask you are protecting others, thus helping the overall situation.  So masks in any situation where peple are close to each other ought to be mandatory.   There is a sense in some that "I don't need to wear a mask" or "I'm not going to wear a mask" but that is just pure selfishness.

 

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Well, the photo of the crowd tells a different story to what it was really like - my wife and daughter said the same things as what some are saying on here about social distancing.  In practice, inside the stadium, because of the large concourse under the South Stand it was easy to keep well separated and everybody adhered to the face mask regulations. And with no vending points open in the concourse there was no queuing or crowding within the stadium.  In fact, at half time the gates at the rear of the South Stand were opened up so that people could stand outside.  There were two vending outlets outside for food and drink and both had well distanced queues.  Pitch side, as somebody else has said there was a row separation both in front and behind and at least two seats separation between 'support bubbles'.  Looking around, it appeared that the the 'support bubbles', in the main, contained pairs of fans rather than larger groups.  There were also loads of stewards to help and advise and my impression of maybe a bit of crowding at the end of the game was the usual few people who just wanted to get up and go whatever the instructions were!  And I can assure you, there were plenty of announcements about what you should be doing at the final whistle.  The club also had it well organised with having vendors constantly wandering around the stand (like an American baseball match) with food and drinks on offer - everything with contactless payment.  All in all, I thought the club organised it very well and at no time did I feel unsafe.

The general feeling I got from everyone was that we were all so grateful and felt so privileged to be there.  If the experiment is repeated (and that probably looks less and less likely) I would highly recommend applying for a ticket and I am more than happy to not get another shot at it until all my fellow ST holders have had a similar chance.

On a final note, I would say that the club would find it very difficult to operate a similar experiment around the rest of the ground, not because of the seating arrangements but because of the narrowness of the concourses and stairwells.  The South Stand is the obvious 'test bed' and I would have thought that maybe 25% capacity of it would be feasible and safe - very odd to see City fans in the away section though!

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22 hours ago, Beefy is a legend said:

The difference of course, is that fans at football is an economic benefit to the country. Sadly you seeing your family, isn't. That's why one is being encouraged and the other is not. 

They are different though. The big difference is that one congregation is mainly outdoors within a stadium whereas the other is indoors with family where the risk is much higher as  COVID can hang in the air in confined interiors.  The potential level of exposure to COVID is also key, evidenced sadly by the high levels of deaths of hospital and care staff who are working in confined areas with lack of proper ventilation and unfiltered air con systems that may exacerbate the problem.

There is a gathering body of evidence that low exposure to COVID while wearing a mask is akin to a vaccination and can confer immunity. 

 

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Slightly OT anyone know what the method of allocating the 1000 places? It looks as though from those pics if supporter A was selected then so too was all the rest in their bubble. Fair enough for the purposes of the test but greatly reduces the chances of single spectators getting in. Slightly unfair if that was the case.

Looking at the spacing I'm not sure it is consistent with an 8000 capacity.

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Hi All to try and help with a few bits that have been raised on this thread.

Our family and friends are part of our social bubble, so if all have season tickets (and you have included them on your account under family and friends) then you can sit together, it was made perfectly clear when we were notified that we would get tickets for another match until ALL season ticket holders have had an opportunity.

The "herding" was the most congested, however the area was clearly marked with 2 metre markings throughout, and everyone wearing masks until in their seats (same if you left seat to use the facilities), the whole process when we arrived just after 2.00 and it was quite busy took less than 15 minutes from joining the line to taking our seats, that included the temperature check, ID and bag checks, we were quite happy and never felt at risk. And i'm sure it will get slicker as you could tell the stewards were getting used to their new regime.

Once inside (there were three of us) we had nobody sitting directly behind us or in in front, and we had 3 seats empty to the side, the largest bubble we could see was 4 but there may have been more, personally i think they got it right, as had the spaced more there would have been even less of an atmosphere.

Finally, a lovely touch before kick off when the Preston GK coach came to the front of the stand, tapped his heart and mouthed "great to see you back" (or similar) before bowing a few times, to a spontaneous round of applause from those in the river end half of the South stand, a lovely gesture, showing that football people know without the fans the game is nothing.

Our 3 had my 72 year old mother in law (she hasn't missed a game in almost 7 years home and away pre COVID) and she felt totally safe the whole day. 

Good luck to those in the ballot for the next games, hope you get to see a win.

OTBC

 

 

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7 hours ago, paul moy said:

They are different though. The big difference is that one congregation is mainly outdoors within a stadium whereas the other is indoors with family where the risk is much higher as  COVID can hang in the air in confined interiors.  The potential level of exposure to COVID is also key, evidenced sadly by the high levels of deaths of hospital and care staff who are working in confined areas with lack of proper ventilation and unfiltered air con systems that may exacerbate the problem.

There is a gathering body of evidence that low exposure to COVID while wearing a mask is akin to a vaccination and can confer immunity. 

 

But Paul, the issue is that you aren't allowed to see family outside in groups above 6 either, not just inside. And I suspect after tomorrow you may not be allowed to do even 6. 

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... and now we have today the news that 18 Leyton Orient players have tested positive prior to their Cup game v Spurs tonight.  They only know because Spurs paid for the tests.

If the game is abandoned as surely it must be then Spurs get a bye into the next round as there is no time available to play the game due to the condensed nature of the season.

Norwich must test their players regularly in my view or we risk forfeiting league games and thus points.

 

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12 hours ago, Beefy is a legend said:

But Paul, the issue is that you aren't allowed to see family outside in groups above 6 either, not just inside. And I suspect after tomorrow you may not be allowed to do even 6. 

Unfortunately there needs to be sensible rules that people must adhere to. They have not so far and so we are almost back to square one.

 

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Too easy to blame the public in my view. The public was doing fine in June and July. The government decided to encourage people to go out, the government opened pubs and restaurants, schools and told people to go back to work. They are ending the furlough. They have to take responsibility and they should factor in an inevitable minority of non-compliance with rules.

 

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On 20/09/2020 at 13:15, Making Plans said:

So my wife and I are not allowed to visit my daughters family of 5 (making 7) but what I see in that picture is fine.

Absolute madness

I think that is where the approach/message falls down. Not sure what the issue would be with you, your missus and your immediate family meeting outside whilst socially distancing.

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4 hours ago, Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man said:

I would guess that league games would be postponed rather than forfeited, no?

The worry is that they could be forfeited but hopefully postponed, but if COVID runs rampant it is anybody's guess.  The Orient cup game tonight is likely forfeited.

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6 hours ago, Beefy is a legend said:

Too easy to blame the public in my view. The public was doing fine in June and July. The government decided to encourage people to go out, the government opened pubs and restaurants, schools and told people to go back to work. They are ending the furlough. They have to take responsibility and they should factor in an inevitable minority of non-compliance with rules.

 

Full lockdown just could not go on for ever or we'd have no economy left.  Even now it appears that pubs will remain open until 10pm but at least that stops some silly late night drunken antics that have no doubt been spreading the disease.

 

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If the government was honest enough to say that full lockdown couldn't go on for economic reasons that would be fair enough, I might even agree. But no, they blame the rise in cases on the public, even though the public did fine for four months and the rise in cases actually funnily enough coincides with telling people to eat out, go back to work, opening pubs, restaurants, casino's, schools, universities and having no contact tracing app and a shambles of a test and trace system which isn't NHS run but sub-contracted to Serco. 

But sure, blame a few silly individuals for what's going on. That's much more convenient than the government admitting that they opened up too far and too fast and now they have to u-turn. 

Edited by Beefy is a legend
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14 hours ago, Beefy is a legend said:

If the government was honest enough to say that full lockdown couldn't go on for economic reasons that would be fair enough, I might even agree. But no, they blame the rise in cases on the public, even though the public did fine for four months and the rise in cases actually funnily enough coincides with telling people to eat out, go back to work, opening pubs, restaurants, casino's, schools, universities and having no contact tracing app and a shambles of a test and trace system which isn't NHS run but sub-contracted to Serco. 

But sure, blame a few silly individuals for what's going on. That's much more convenient than the government admitting that they opened up too far and too fast and now they have to u-turn. 

It's an unprecedented situation so of course where decisions have been made in good faith but maybe have not been the correct ones, they may have to be rolled back slightly, as in the earlier closing of bars.  A large number of mainly younger members of society though have not helped with their refusal to adhere to commonsense rules of masks and social distancing in the evenings which has resulted in this earlier closing of bars,  There is clearly no full u-turn here though and the ongoing situation is far more palatable than it was in March.

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The ban on crowds is ridiculous. 

Since the end of lock-down there have been over 3 billion personal interactions inside pubs. These were indoors. The result was not a boom in deaths due to Covid-19. 

Supermarket workers have been exposed to many more interactions than any other group bar healthcare workers yet death rates among both supermarket workers and healthcare workers are no different to anyone else. 

PCR testing detects live virus and dead virus. What we now have is possibly a "casedemic" not a pandemic.

We had the same scaremongering after the swine flu epidemic with scaled up PCR tests showing a high rate of hits on dead viral RNA in healthy people after an initial pandemic had occurred.

Theses hits were interpreted as a second wave but the level of deaths in this so called second wave were very low and didn't support this interpretation.

Both then and now the death rates were low despite despite testing showing an apparently  higher rate of infection within the population. With government scientists interpreting all PCR hits as being hits on live virus and this data being the basis for R rate calculations the panic may be overblown. 

With the wearing of masks and insistence on social distancing we should not be experiencing a seasonal flu epidemic. Yet we are.

The video looks at the statistical interpretation of the Covid 19 pandemic. 

 

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23 hours ago, paul moy said:

It's an unprecedented situation so of course where decisions have been made in good faith but maybe have not been the correct ones, they may have to be rolled back slightly, as in the earlier closing of bars.  A large number of mainly younger members of society though have not helped with their refusal to adhere to commonsense rules of masks and social distancing in the evenings which has resulted in this earlier closing of bars,  There is clearly no full u-turn here though and the ongoing situation is far more palatable than it was in March.

Sorry Paul but I can't necessarily agree with this Government age bias - my teenage daughter and her friends have been more responsible than some of the elder members of the community.  My daughter  always wears a mask in the shops/indoors venues, books tables, keeps to the numbers and socially distances but when I went to my local shop in the village, I was the only one with a mask and three other people in the shop (older than me and I am 65) weren't wearing masks and neither was the shop keeper or his staff member - absolutely disgraceful on a number of fronts.  I think that targetting the young is an easy cop out and I  certainly see more responsibility amongst the young than some of the older (I'm alright Jack) members of the community!

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On 24/09/2020 at 12:09, Lord Horn (again) said:

Sorry Paul but I can't necessarily agree with this Government age bias - my teenage daughter and her friends have been more responsible than some of the elder members of the community.  My daughter  always wears a mask in the shops/indoors venues, books tables, keeps to the numbers and socially distances but when I went to my local shop in the village, I was the only one with a mask and three other people in the shop (older than me and I am 65) weren't wearing masks and neither was the shop keeper or his staff member - absolutely disgraceful on a number of fronts.  I think that targetting the young is an easy cop out and I  certainly see more responsibility amongst the young than some of the older (I'm alright Jack) members of the community!

Hi Lord Horn,  we now have about 172 students tested positive at Glasgow university resulting in 600 having to self-isolate after freshers week so this does give evidence that certain members of our society have a very complacent attitude to social distancing, masks, and also a disregard for other older folk. 

I am not condemning all as obviously some intelligent and caring youngsters are taking the pandemic seriously but in general it is older, more mature folk that are taking this more seriously as they realise that it is their health mainly at stake.  Certainly in my area, all people I see while out shopping are being very careful to wear masks where necessary, social distance and sanitise before entering supermarkets and bars during the day.   It has been the disregard of social distancing in bars in the evenings that in my view has lead to a more sensible closing time.  

Edited by paul moy

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On 24/09/2020 at 10:23, Bonzo said:

The ban on crowds is ridiculous. 

Since the end of lock-down there have been over 3 billion personal interactions inside pubs. These were indoors. The result was not a boom in deaths due to Covid-19. 

Supermarket workers have been exposed to many more interactions than any other group bar healthcare workers yet death rates among both supermarket workers and healthcare workers are no different to anyone else. 

PCR testing detects live virus and dead virus. What we now have is possibly a "casedemic" not a pandemic.

We had the same scaremongering after the swine flu epidemic with scaled up PCR tests showing a high rate of hits on dead viral RNA in healthy people after an initial pandemic had occurred.

Theses hits were interpreted as a second wave but the level of deaths in this so called second wave were very low and didn't support this interpretation.

Both then and now the death rates were low despite despite testing showing an apparently  higher rate of infection within the population. With government scientists interpreting all PCR hits as being hits on live virus and this data being the basis for R rate calculations the panic may be overblown. 

With the wearing of masks and insistence on social distancing we should not be experiencing a seasonal flu epidemic. Yet we are.

The video looks at the statistical interpretation of the Covid 19 pandemic. 

 

The 'proof of the pudding' is in the rising numbers of people currently being admitted to hospital and the corresponding rise in deaths due to COVID.  Deaths are again worryingly rising and the latest figure is 40,  announced yesterday.  Denial of the issue is dangerous and even the deniers beloved Sweden had 5 deaths and is introducing lockdown measures. 

 

 

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On 22/09/2020 at 21:30, Beefy is a legend said:

If the government was honest enough to say that full lockdown couldn't go on for economic reasons that would be fair enough, I might even agree. But no, they blame the rise in cases on the public, even though the public did fine for four months and the rise in cases actually funnily enough coincides with telling people to eat out, go back to work, opening pubs, restaurants, casino's, schools, universities and having no contact tracing app and a shambles of a test and trace system which isn't NHS run but sub-contracted to Serco. 

But sure, blame a few silly individuals for what's going on. That's much more convenient than the government admitting that they opened up too far and too fast and now they have to u-turn. 

I'm sure that most reasonable people can see for themselves that a full lockdown is unsustainable and would ruin the country, so shouldn't require a government to tell them that. As it is, the government borrowed over 36 Billion pounds in August alone. In my view the furlough and loan schemes were rather too generous and open to massive fraud (I know personally of one case involving a 50K loan) and deterred many from trying to get back to some sort of normality. Of course the lockdown worked originally because most people stayed at home for the first few months, but this could not go on for ever and we had to find a way out. In hindsight some errors were made but at least now we do have some of the economy up and running and growing GDP at last.

Many of the public have been ignoring the rules such as those partaking in demonstrations and the anti-mask brigade, so of course they are culpable and deserved to be called out. Just yesterday a young guy was turfed off a train for not wearing a mask and refusing to put one on.

... and now there is a story about an illegal freshers mass party in Manchester University......

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8771509/12-universities-set-Covid-testing-students-banned-parties-pubs.html

 

 

 

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Football fans cant watch their team due to restrictions. Bielsa somehow can get into ground to watch the forest v huddersfield.  Hows that. Hes not part of the set up. Fans being mugged off again.

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On 24/09/2020 at 10:23, Bonzo said:

The ban on crowds is ridiculous. 

Since the end of lock-down there have been over 3 billion personal interactions inside pubs. These were indoors. The result was not a boom in deaths due to Covid-19. 

Supermarket workers have been exposed to many more interactions than any other group bar healthcare workers yet death rates among both supermarket workers and healthcare workers are no different to anyone else. 

PCR testing detects live virus and dead virus. What we now have is possibly a "casedemic" not a pandemic.

We had the same scaremongering after the swine flu epidemic with scaled up PCR tests showing a high rate of hits on dead viral RNA in healthy people after an initial pandemic had occurred.

Theses hits were interpreted as a second wave but the level of deaths in this so called second wave were very low and didn't support this interpretation.

Both then and now the death rates were low despite despite testing showing an apparently  higher rate of infection within the population. With government scientists interpreting all PCR hits as being hits on live virus and this data being the basis for R rate calculations the panic may be overblown. 

With the wearing of masks and insistence on social distancing we should not be experiencing a seasonal flu epidemic. Yet we are.

The video looks at the statistical interpretation of the Covid 19 pandemic. 

 

 

I'm afraid that to me all the above misses the point - that the reduction in cases was brought about by the severe restrictions put in place (and it being the summer which may have helped) and the slight rise in new cases that have happened - probably due to the relaxing the lockdown - that unless steps are taken, will quickly see the virus getting out of control as the spread of the virus speeds up exponentially - which is starting to happen. 

People that say there isn't any need to stop gatherings are just missing that fundamental point - closeness of people means spreading the virus. One person who gets it liable to pass it on to 12-14 others - so do the maths.....within no time the virus could get totally out of control which is why so many countries are so quick to pounce on it wherever it arises. It has to be so. This so called "no point in crowd bans" and/or "no point in wearing masks" is just whining for the sake of it. No-one likes it, but if people do as they are told and we might just see the virus reduce again.  Perhaps we need the policy that existed in the 1918 pandemic -

The 1918 Spanish flu: How lessons learned apply to today's COVID-19  pandemic - ABC7 Los Angeles

 

 

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16 hours ago, canarycop said:

Football fans cant watch their team due to restrictions. Bielsa somehow can get into ground to watch the forest v huddersfield.  Hows that. Hes not part of the set up. Fans being mugged off again.

Limited numbers of people have been allowed at all games ... directors mainly and their guests. No doubt Bielsa has friends amongst these and acquired an invite.  

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I was watching the Dortmund game then the Beerschot game in Belgium and the practice in crowd placement was obvious. Dortmund had perfect symetric spacing which looked correct. Beerschot had clumps of people like a poorly attended lower league game. It's culture.

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On 25/09/2020 at 21:31, lake district canary said:

 

I'm afraid that to me all the above misses the point - that the reduction in cases was brought about by the severe restrictions put in place (and it being the summer which may have helped) and the slight rise in new cases that have happened - probably due to the relaxing the lockdown - that unless steps are taken, will quickly see the virus getting out of control as the spread of the virus speeds up exponentially - which is starting to happen. 

People that say there isn't any need to stop gatherings are just missing that fundamental point - closeness of people means spreading the virus. One person who gets it liable to pass it on to 12-14 others - so do the maths.....within no time the virus could get totally out of control which is why so many countries are so quick to pounce on it wherever it arises. It has to be so. This so called "no point in crowd bans" and/or "no point in wearing masks" is just whining for the sake of it. No-one likes it, but if people do as they are told and we might just see the virus reduce again.  Perhaps we need the policy that existed in the 1918 pandemic -

The 1918 Spanish flu: How lessons learned apply to today's COVID-19  pandemic - ABC7 Los Angeles

 

 

You'd probably need to watch the video to comment. Admittedly it is a bit long. The points you make relate to the initial pandemic wave and I agree with them. What we now have is some strange data. High infection rates low death rates. Check out worldometer -this data is replicated across most of Western Europe. The initial death rates mirrored the R rate during the pandemic wave that started in March in the UK but what is happening now is a different correlation. 

I don't disagree with mask wearing or isolating cases however it is well known that most of the scientific data published on this subject is pre print data that has not been peer reviewed. The science cannot be done quick enough. 

Interestingly many of the deaths in the 1918 pandemic were due to clinically lethal levels of asprin being administered. In other words they had the same problem we have. The scientific knowledge that is needed to manage the pandemic cannot be produced quickly enough to be useful in policy formulation.

Consequently many of the assumptions that policy makers are using are founded on little more than reasoned guesswork not actual science.

In 1918 these assumptions lead to many people dying in hospital poisoned by doctors using large doses of asprin.

Getting the science wrong now also has all sorts of ramifications both medically and economically. 

 

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On 25/09/2020 at 21:31, lake district canary said:

 

I'm afraid that to me all the above misses the point - that the reduction in cases was brought about by the severe restrictions put in place (and it being the summer which may have helped) and the slight rise in new cases that have happened - probably due to the relaxing the lockdown - that unless steps are taken, will quickly see the virus getting out of control as the spread of the virus speeds up exponentially - which is starting to happen. 

People that say there isn't any need to stop gatherings are just missing that fundamental point - closeness of people means spreading the virus. One person who gets it liable to pass it on to 12-14 others - so do the maths.....within no time the virus could get totally out of control which is why so many countries are so quick to pounce on it wherever it arises. It has to be so. This so called "no point in crowd bans" and/or "no point in wearing masks" is just whining for the sake of it. No-one likes it, but if people do as they are told and we might just see the virus reduce again.  Perhaps we need the policy that existed in the 1918 pandemic -

The 1918 Spanish flu: How lessons learned apply to today's COVID-19  pandemic - ABC7 Los Angeles

 

 

I remember watching a documentary a few years ago about the terrible Spanish Flu epidemic. People became obsessed with wearing masks to the extent a man was shot dead by a stranger for not wearing a mask. The scientists said trying to control the flu from transmitting by wearing a mask was like trying to stop Niagara Falls with a colander.

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7 hours ago, ALBOWLLY said:

I remember watching a documentary a few years ago about the terrible Spanish Flu epidemic. People became obsessed with wearing masks to the extent a man was shot dead by a stranger for not wearing a mask. The scientists said trying to control the flu from transmitting by wearing a mask was like trying to stop Niagara Falls with a colander.

Masks won't stop people getting it but they will lower the dosage received and consequently the severity of the virus infection. 

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3 hours ago, paul moy said:

Masks won't stop people getting it but they will lower the dosage received and consequently the severity of the virus infection. 

Some very interesting post from Bonzo - thank you for the info. 

Paul Moy - I understand you pointing out several cases of breaches of distancing rules etc but I think you are missing a key point. Humans as a large population have very predictable behaviour.

When you allow large groups of young people to leave home and congregate in halls of residence, then guess what, some percentage of them will have parties. 

In the general population, some percentage of people will be Covid deniers, criminals, or simply selfish and won't really care about adhering to distancing.

The government should know this and they should factor it into their calculations as to what can and can't be safely opened up. It is far more useful for the government to do that and tailor their policies than to not do so, see their policy fail, then blame the public. 

They've had a difficult hand to play have the Tories, but christ, they've played it woefully. 

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