dealtn wrote:Well it maybe pretty clear to you, but I can assure you it's not pretty clear to those in the industry, and evidence over the last couple of years doesn't it make it "obvious" at all it is "high risk".
To be fair it was "higher" risk. But you can take things from first principles - there's lots of evidence now that Covid is primarily spread by airborne aerosols - think of it like cigarette smoke. There is more risk associated with :
- the most famous example is perhaps
the Skagit choir case, where one person at the back infected almost the whole choir :
On the flip side, being outside reduces the risk a lot - although top-level football stadiums are typically pretty enclosed, so they're not as "outside" as they might seem in terms of dispersing "cigarette smoke", and there's plenty of areas like hospitality, toilets and buses/trains where people are "inside" for these purposes at some point during the event.
Also you might want to ask these epidemiologists :
https://www.espn.co.uk/espn/story/_/id/ ... diums-fans"I am a die-hard sports fan," said Jason Salemi, an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of South Florida in Tampa. "But I would not go to these events right now."...
A packed football stadium now is not a good idea,'' said Dr. Olveen Carrasquillo, a professor of medicine and public health sciences at the University of Miami's medical school. "When there's a lot of shouting and yelling'' without masks, "it means they're spraying the virus.''dealtn wrote:Speaking as someone who is a Director of a professional football club, and the matchday Covid Officer, we welcome any scientific evidence on the riskiness of staging events, and the resulting appropriate matchday protocols.
The big problem is that Covid transmission is so flipping lumpy - 80% of people don't transmit it at all, but a handful of people transmit to 20+ people. So you need a lot of data before you can distinguish between being safe and being lucky - there's been lots of outdoor events with relatively low levels of transmission and then you get a
Boardmasters with 4,700+ cases confirmed by PCR (and being in the West Country,
possibly more that don't show on PCR). And from your point of view, there's the problem of distinguishing between what happens in the areas under your direct control, and what happens away from the stadium.
You have got some evidence, such as the non-peer-reviewed
Olczak et al which saw increased transmission in 2020 associated even with 20% attendance, and the
Bundesliga saw significant increases when masks were not stricly enforced at games. The Georgia schools study
I mentioned in the other thread is one of those that points to significant benefits from wearing masks (and other research has shown that N95 are significantly better than surgical masks).
In theory the Events Research Programme should have given some answers, but there were
some significant problems with the way it was implemented such that the results are inconclusive at best and the government was clearly in such a hurry to unlock that they weren't seriously interested in the results. But the ERP does suggest that the risks are manageable when virus levels are low and people are required to be LFT-negative before going to a stadium, whereas Boardmasters shows what can happen in less favourable conditions.
Requiring a negative LFT is not perfect, but should at least stop potential superspreaders going to the event. So it's not surprising that eg
Spurs and
Chelsea are requiring either double-jabs or a negative LFT for anyone attending their games.
It can be tricky to enforce the wearing of masks, even if it makes a significant difference as the Bundesliga and Georgia studies show, but at the very least businesses can normalise them, with staff wearing them, making it clear in all communications that you encourage them to be worn. The big thing that is not being talked about much in the UK because it needs money spending, albeit not huge amounts - is ventilation and air filtration. Studies like the
Conway-Morris et al preprint at Addenbrooke's clearly show that portable HEPA units do a great job of clearing virus (and bacteria) particles from the air in an environment like a hospital ward. They may not be practical for eg stadium concourses but look a good and not particularly expensive solution for quieter enclosed environments like "restaurant" areas where it's not practical for customers to wear masks and people are hopefully not shouting in each others faces like they can be pitchside.
There's no one solution for all areas, it's more a question of building up layered defences that may not be perfect but where each layer cumulatively cuts the risk. I know many sports businesses have had a tough time over the last 18 months and cash and other resources are tight, but at the same time encouraging masks on customers, requiring vaccination or a recent negative test, use of portable HEPA filters could all be regarded as "reasonably practicable" towards your duty in law to protect the health, safety and welfare of employees and other people who might be affected by your business.