COVID-19 could affect more races this year.

[e30ernest]

Any links to that loss of lung capacity? It sounds counterintuitive, but it is now the second time I see that mentioned, both in F1T.

https://www.businessinsider.com/coronav ... 20%251%24s
There are links in China too, but those links are not always accessible outside of China it seems.

Yeah if this turns out to be true, then the UK will be in trouble with their plan. Also, that would really suck for those that survive. IIRC, there was another one that had this result, I'm not sure if it was MERS.

It's all pretty scary. I'm probably just behind the "front lines" since my wife is a doctor, and she's had several suspected cases now this past week alone that she sent out for testing. Our country has a shortage of kits so a lot of people aren't getting tested.

[mmred]

Any links to that loss of lung capacity? It sounds counterintuitive, but it is now the second time I see that mentioned, both in F1T.

https://www.businessinsider.com/coronav ... 20%251%24s
There are links in China too, but those links are not always accessible outside of China it seems.

Yeah if this turns out to be true, then the UK will be in trouble with their plan. Also, that would really suck for those that survive. IIRC, there was another one that had this result, I'm not sure if it was MERS.

It's all pretty scary. I'm probably just behind the "front lines" since my wife is a doctor, and she's had several suspected cases now this past week alone that she sent out for testing. Our country has a shortage of kits so a lot of people aren't getting tested.

Forza Italia. I suppose

[Just_a_fan]

Geesh. It's pretty clear by now the virus is slowly disappearing in China, and this will eventually also happen in Europe.
F1's already been postponed to may, and no race except for Austrailia, which has been cancelled anyway, would have too much of a problem finding another spot during the year.
Spain can even be postponed by a week, by then we're in the third week of may, and the virus will be eradicated by then.
Bahrain is relatively close to Azerbaijan and there's space in between to host the GP.
Vietnam can take place either a week before Singapore, or have Marina bay race a week earlier and have 'Nam take that weekend.
Host China before the Japanese GP and have the Dutch GP before the Belgian GP.

What a huge amount of exegeration in 'ooh 2020 is done for' without any reasonable base whatsoever. You guys must be the same people that fight over a pack of toilet paper.

Besides the current chaos and impact of COVID-19, you do know that, while all other teams have their factories running, Ferrari and most likely Alpha Tauri could not have been running? That means, it's an unfair competition between the teams who have been working and those who aren't. Does it make sense to have a season where one of the protagonists is handicapped?

Is it fair competition when one or two teams get a big chunk of money from the organiser just because of who they are? In a sport that requires money to succeed, that's a bigger handicap on those that don't get the payment, and certainly isn't "fair competition".

[Just_a_fan]

This half-assed attempt to slow things down is what will ultimately cripple the economy. It would be just better if every government had the courage to do a complete lockdown for a couple of weeks, rather than this reactive approach that has gone on for days and will go on for weeks until the inevitable needs to be done anyway.

If you lock down the entire population for a a couple of weeks, you just delay the inevitable. When the lock down ends, there will still be carriers who will then infect people and it will start again, only this time, people will be crowded together at work, in bars etc., having been separated from friends, family, colleagues. Then you'll get a huge spike of infection which will totally overwhelm the country's ability to deal with it. The plans in place are intended to "flatten the curve" so that the numbers requiring medical help don't exceed the capacity to deal with them.

[Phil]

I never said that going from a full lockdown one should go back to "normal". That much should be obvious. And I wasn't talking about battling the virus but more about what scenario is less damning for businesses and economy. As you say, what will happen is inevitable. The question is at what damage and at what loss of life.

I'd also add that the "measures to flatten the curve" are already (too) late. Should have been done way earlier, pre-emtively and not reactive.

[mmred]

I never said that going from a full lockdown one should go back to "normal". That much should be obvious. And I wasn't talking about battling the virus but more about what scenario is less damning for businesses and economy. As you say, what will happen is inevitable. The question is at what damage and at what loss of life.

I'd also add that the "measures to flatten the curve" are already (too) late. Should have been done way earlier, pre-emtively and not reactive.

Democracies don't have martial law like in china. They Need justifications

[kimetic]

All the sites seem to be saying 12-18 months to a vaccine, so how can there be more races this year? The virus can only spread through the population, since it seems to be too contagious to just die out on its own, and the only control we have is to slow the spread down. Unless I head something miraculous today or maybe tomorrow, I think I shall cancel SkyF1.

[DChemTech]

Geesh. It's pretty clear by now the virus is slowly disappearing in China, and this will eventually also happen in Europe.
F1's already been postponed to may, and no race except for Austrailia, which has been cancelled anyway, would have too much of a problem finding another spot during the year.
Spain can even be postponed by a week, by then we're in the third week of may, and the virus will be eradicated by then.
Bahrain is relatively close to Azerbaijan and there's space in between to host the GP.
Vietnam can take place either a week before Singapore, or have Marina bay race a week earlier and have 'Nam take that weekend.
Host China before the Japanese GP and have the Dutch GP before the Belgian GP.

What a huge amount of exegeration in 'ooh 2020 is done for' without any reasonable base whatsoever. You guys must be the same people that fight over a pack of toilet paper.

Besides the current chaos and impact of COVID-19, you do know that, while all other teams have their factories running, Ferrari and most likely Alpha Tauri could not have been running? That means, it's an unfair competition between the teams who have been working and those who aren't. Does it make sense to have a season where one of the protagonists is handicapped?

Is it fair competition when one or two teams get a big chunk of money from the organiser just because of who they are? In a sport that requires money to succeed, that's a bigger handicap on those that don't get the payment, and certainly isn't "fair competition".

I would upvote this twice if I could

[Just_a_fan]

I never said that going from a full lockdown one should go back to "normal". That much should be obvious. And I wasn't talking about battling the virus but more about what scenario is less damning for businesses and economy. As you say, what will happen is inevitable. The question is at what damage and at what loss of life.

I'd also add that the "measures to flatten the curve" are already (too) late. Should have been done way earlier, pre-emtively and not reactive.

How governments respond to the needs of business/industry will be key. If we follow the strictly capitalist way of "the weak fail, the strong pick up the business" then we're going to see a lot of pain. What is needed is for the international community to accept that governments need to be able to help their own industries to survive. If that means state aid, then so be it. I have no doubt that some will do this and will be better off later than those that say "it's not our role to help failing companies" (looking at you, UK Government).

However, this is straying in to the forbidden realm of politics, so we should stop here before the mods arrive...

[AJI]

...
I'd also add that the "measures to flatten the curve" are already (too) late. Should have been done way earlier, pre-emtively and not reactive.

True. I feel the Melbourne F1 (as insignificant as it is in the grand scale of world events) was a nice little test case for how the 1st world would handle this situation. It was obviously an abject failure... Melbourne is today (one day after the original GP date) officially in a state-of-emergency. Knee-jerk mode - activate!
Full quarantine, in the true sense of the word, is probably the only path now, but I can't see that happening, so we're in bandaid on bandaid on bandaid mode.

[hollus]

You probably mean 12 to 18 months, but the message is clear. 1-2 years for a proper mass produced vaccine is also my (unprofessional) best guess of the situation.

[DChemTech]

All the sites seem to be saying 12-18 years to a vaccine, so how can there be more races this year? The virus can only spread through the population, since it seems to be too contagious to just die out on its own, and the only control we have is to slow the spread down. Unless I head something miraculous today or maybe tomorrow, I think I shall cancel SkyF1.

12 years for new medicine (drug) to get approved. Vaccines can be done quite a bit quicker if needed, but still count on a year or so to get full approval..

[hollus]

I think some repurposed drugs will be available by autumn. But yet, a drug from scratch would take 10 years.

[DChemTech]

I think some repurposed drugs will be available by autumn. But yet, a drug from scratch would take 10 years.

yeah there are some leads indeed. If a drug that's already market-approved manages to have some effect, that would drastically cut timelines. Also a Dutch university that already had some corona antibodies on the shelf from previous research is hopeful they may have an effect and are trying to accelerate studies towards their effect - with all the urgency behind it, perhaps trials can be sped up. This is definitely not the typical drug development trajectory in that sense. But also these researchers are clear: a vaccine is absolutely preferred to a drug. Avoidance beats curing

[nzjrs]

To relate this back to F1...... tenuously and radomly

I see the UK response as analogous to what F1 did in Melbourne - weak and leaderless - or at least people don't believe what the leader is saying and so go ahead with what they think the most likely outcome would be. If I compare that to Austria, the government has taken a very strong role and the mood is positive, less panic, and confidence is high.

Politics is the art of the sale as much as it is the act of leading, and the UK isn't buying what Boris is selling. They look like they can get a better deal elsewhere. Even if that deal is panic.

If the UK is F1, then let's 'wait and see' with all the races this year. If another country was F1 and cancelled immediately all the races before summer break before and made a committed plan to salvage half/a super-season, which would be better for F1 finances. If F1 is an economy, which works better (I don't know).

What would Bernie do in this situation?