Pre game preamble: AFL 2020 Rd 6: Carlton vs ???

[Baggers]

Firstly, I'm posting this in this thread because we are discussing the risks to opening games to the public, ours being one of them.

The growth of COVID-19 can be exponential Thry, the medical specialists know R[sub]0[/sub] is not yet clearly defined for COVID-19 and sits somewhere well above 1.0. Influenza R[sub]0[/sub] is typically 1.2 to 1.6, and COVID-19 might be above 2.0.

btw., For those not familiar, when you hear discussions that COVID-19 is 5x more infectious than Flu, you do not need the R[sub]0[/sub] value to be 5x the Influenza R[sub]0[/sub] for that to be true. For example growth rates under five cycles of infection;
Influenza (R[sub]0[/sub] = 1.6) = 1.6[sup]1.6[/sup] = 2.6[sup]1.6[/sup] = 5.0[sup]1.6[/sup] = 11[sup]1.6[/sup] = 48
COVID-19 (R[sub]0[/sub] = 2.0) = 2[sup]2[/sup] = 4[sup]2[/sup] = 16[sup]2[/sup] = 256[sup]2[/sup] = 65536

Such a small change in R[sub]0[/sub] from 1.6 to 2.0 and the thing is out of control. You can understand why the medical specialists are so edgy about letting the reigns loose, keeping in mind they do not know what R[sub]0[/sub] really is but from the history of cases so far R[sub]0[/sub] for COVID-19 is higher than R[sub]0[/sub] for Influenza.

Now keep in mind, these cycles seem to be taking at least 14 days, maybe longer to surface, five cycles is almost two months and if we were out of lock down the result could be catastrophic for hospitals in a time frame impossible for them to deal with.

Maybe the 14 days is not a useful figure for the number of days an infection takes to get hold, it looks like the real world figure could 21 to 28 days. In some respect they won't bother looking for latency beyond 14 days because that makes all sorts of things untenable, contact tracing for example becomes almost impossible beyond about 14 days, so instead they'll look to further refine R[sub]0[/sub] to get some idea of rates. Finding a better R[sub]0[/sub] is neither a cure or a prophylactic, but it tells them how long and aggressive they need to be in the planning.

Now what does all this mean for AFL. It means it's a completely unacceptable risk to allow patrons into games. Because if we get a brace of infections to players as a result of public exposure the season is over for everybody. There will be no way to differentiate those potentially infected from those exposed but not infected within the 14 day window, the 14 days is completely arbitrary and has more to do with what the public will accept as an isolation period rather than a valid quarantine period.

Thank you, Spotted One. Makes you realise, in one respect, just what a diabolical powder keg the orange weasel has lit in the US with his breathtaking ignorance.