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 auticus wrote:
I've been to a great many tournaments. You cannot keep your distance from people in a venue. You are constantly going by people, bumping people, etc.

Just not touching other peoples' models and dice is not going to stop you from catching an illness.

Its common for people to pick up an illness, minor or whatever, at conventions and gatherings.

Exactly.

facemasks, fresh dice, hand sanitizer, roped off areas. It's all just an illusion of safety. It doesn't fully protect you in any meaningful way when you are in close proximity to lots of people.

So you are faced with a stark choice, sit in a basement for the next x amount of years as this isn't going away any time soon,or take the risk of carrying on with your life.

There is no right and wrong answer and your mileage may vary, personally i choose life.

And I'm not saying don't use best practises; hand sanitizer, masks etc. Just recognize that its not a full proof defense.

In the case of a mask, it isn't there to defend you - it's there to potentially protect others from you...

As for tournaments and corona, take a look at the pictures of the room from the Battle Bunker's events from July onwards. Sure, the tables may be far enough apart that each one is sort of a mini-bubble, but as auticus said earlier in the thread, there's no way to keep apart from people overall to avoid potential infection. As far as the pictures of the room I've seen, no-one seems to be wearing a mask while playing, either.

And the proprietor thinks he's being one of the good guys...

 Dysartes wrote:


And the proprietor thinks he's being one of the good guys...

Another personal attack on the Owner. You seem to have a huge problem with this venue. Its been explained to you twice that at the time of the Tournaments that the current Local authority rules were being followed for "venue" and for the "shop". You ignored factual replies and you continue to gak talk about a subject you know little about.

I was there today, all the processes the Owner took time to explain to you in a lengthy reply were in place and I had way more distance between parties ( it's an old car showroom) than my meal out last night which was in a much smaller building. If you don't want to go to a FLGS or Tournament , its a sensible precaution and I can quite understand it but it doesn't make you right.

Here with cases rising up tournaments and gaming nights are starting to put up mask requirement up. Fair enough. Not huge issue to wear and while it's not bullet proof any help is better.

And yes masks aren't to protect you as such though studies do show some protection. But main point is to reduce infections YOU spread. So you aren't less likely to catch it. If you have virus though others are lot less likely. And of course if everybody wears one you are protected by the virus carrier being less likely to infect others(inc. you).

And it means less likely you need to take test as well which is alone worth wearing it Not pleasant experience(having taken one today).

In my area we have now had I believe two of our 40k players contract corona (and both were at the game store back in may and june playing 40k).

So yeah its a personal choice. Just be aware that your personal choice in this case has some potentially serious kickbacks.

For me a weekend tournament is not worth two to four weeks of being laid up, potentially permanent dialysis, or worst case: death.

Start getting good with tabletop simulator or other things of that nature IMO until this passes or a treatment has been discovered.

 auticus wrote:
In my area we have now had I believe two of our 40k players contract corona (and both were at the game store back in may and june playing 40k).

So yeah its a personal choice. Just be aware that your personal choice in this case has some potentially serious kickbacks.

For me a weekend tournament is not worth two to four weeks of being laid up, potentially permanent dialysis, or worst case: death.

Start getting good with tabletop simulator or other things of that nature IMO until this passes or a treatment has been discovered.

Where are you at Auticus? Because that makes a huge difference. If I was in say Georgia where there still isn't a mask requirement as far as I'm aware I'd be unlikely to leave my house unless it was for food/supplies. However in a place where numbers are dropping and masks are required I'm more ok with going out and even attending a small event (less than 20 people) for a day of gaming.

I'm absolutely not engaging in any in-person wargaming until this is truly through.

I know people who had COVID-19 back in the early stages. One of them, a 30 year old like me, got to the point where he was "sorting out his affairs" aka writing a Last Will and Testament.

On a less immediate to me level, a friend's coworker's sister just died of COVID-19. She lived in Texas and was 30 years old.

Sounds like a sensible approach to take, ph34r.

I live in a region with a heavy mask policy. And the people in my gaming stores that play 40k still wear masks. Around their chins. With their faces exposed.

Because no one tells them what to do.

The current equivalent of wearing pants on your head, wearing your mask on your chin

 ph34r wrote:
I'm absolutely not engaging in any in-person wargaming until this is truly through.

I know people who had COVID-19 back in the early stages. One of them, a 30 year old like me, got to the point where he was "sorting out his affairs" aka writing a Last Will and Testament.

On a less immediate to me level, a friend's coworker's sister just died of COVID-19. She lived in Texas and was 30 years old.

I've known 11 people know that have had it. All have lived which is fortunate. All have expressed what hell it was. They ranged in age from 25 - 45. I'm 43 and diabetic. Additionally as I have posted, most of the gamers in my city think covid is either a hoax to swing the election or to force some islamic mask policy (i'm not making this up this is what some of them were talking about in june in the store), not that big a deal, or just a flu that they'd be fine with. And a good many of them wear masks around their chin or hanging off their ear until the owner of the store comes by and then they put it over their face until he's out of sight. So for me, any games that I choose to do will not be in any store or any indoor venue, it will be outside with just my opponent and using precautions.

IMO tournaments right now are the stupidest thing people could be doing. Pandemics are not a common thing, I think its ok to put the year away and we'll be ok and ready to go next year or whenever a handle has been had on this personally.

 auticus wrote:
IMO tournaments right now are the stupidest thing people could be doing. Pandemics are not a common thing, I think its ok to put the year away and we'll be ok and ready to go next year or whenever a handle has been had on this personally.

I fully agree - regardless of where in the world you are, you shouldn't be running/attending IRL tournaments. People's health is more important than getting a game in. Anyone running events and claiming they're doing the right thing are insane - the right thing to do is to not run the damn events.

Of course, if you want to do virtual ones, knock yourselves out.

It gets a bit pathetic when people tell others they are stupid for ignoring govt advise and then tell them they are stupid for following it as well. I wasn't there, but is there something about that Battle Bunker tourney that didn't follow official advice?

If you think it is wrong then raise it with local politician rather than slamming those trying to get on with life whilst also looking to follow advise about corona. If we really shouldn't be opening such places then it is for the govt to make it clear.

Societies won't stay in lock down indefinitely waiting for an infallible vaccine that may never arrive, complaining about that won't alter the fact. What exactly is your threshold for acceptance? Every year people go to events and risk passing for example seasonal flu that kills others and flood hospitals with patients. Whilst it is certainly not as severe as corona at the moment a few years ago flu in the UK killed just shy of 30K people, which isn't that far off the current corona death toll. Flu is still a major killer. Yet we barely bat an eyelid whilst going about our life spreading it.

I have relatives who effectively lock themselves away in winter because flu would kill them, even with the vaccine which is never 100% sure (that bad year above was a year that the vaccine was less effective in the face of mutating flu), but that is their personal choice and they don't expect society to close down. If you accept the risk of such things, then why not corona, what is your personal threshold on risk? Is it some selfish feeling that you personally might die from corona but you would survive flu? Or do you see a few 10k of dead people from flu as nothing to worry about but the death toll from corona as somehow unacceptable to a degree that everyone who doesn't agree is insane.

Especially funny when putting in blanket statement without factoring in not every country is same. Fact: UK and US have been hit harder than most. However that doesn't mean every country is same.

ATM situation here for example is pretty much every case has been due to trip to foreign country or because somebody in their family went. There's very little to none infections inside country that isn't linked to foreign trips. There's been zero cases linked to public transports since this even started.

Odds of getting corona virus from tournament that takes up precautions is about the scale of getting hit by meteorite when you step out of your front door.

Of course if the virus starts to spread again so that risk becomes more plausible game stores close. They did that once before. They will do it again if need be. ATM you have higher risk of being killed by meteorite than catching it in game store.

Also people here take it seriously and follow instructions. Mask requirement was installed. People started using it(of course there's the little fact if you didn't you wouldn't get to play or even be there. You have no right to be there. You are told to leave you go or you start a fight and then you will go away after a fight. If by nothing else than by police if you really started fist fight over it). There's no "it's hoax" claims. And people don't come if they have symptoms. As it is I have still light cough and I didn't go there despite having fresh negative test result to show I don't have it. Been locked on my home since friday, test on sunday and since friday haven't even seen anybody live(quaranteed) so I can 100% safely say I don't have it. Yet I keep out of game area on the account of having cough still remaining.

puree wrote:
but is there something about that Battle Bunker tourney that didn't follow official advice?

It is just a single poster on this thread and the other thread who seems to take issue with the Owner despite being given what was a lengthy, factual and in-depth reply which he has not had the decency to reply in turn to.

At the time of the Tournaments the Venue was following and is currently following local authority advice as I visited the Shop this Sunday. It has a higher standard of Covid safety than the Metro, Supermarket and Restaurant I visited the day before.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Dysartes wrote:
Anyone running events and claiming they're doing the right thing are insane - the right thing to do is to not run the damn events.

You just cant stop yourself can you?

Considering how well informed and knowledgeable all our "official advice" has been, regardless, I'll err on the side of caution.

A lot of recent study has shown fine particulate in the air as far away as 16 feet, and that air quality and "airflow" has a huge amount to do with how the virus spreads - i.e. indoors ends up with higher concentrations over time compared to outdoors.

The science is also not real clear on all the potential long-term effects of the virus on even relatively healthy people (lung, neurological, etc.) if they've contracted it.

So for myself, I'd be self-selecting to not attend any indoor events where groups will be congregating, regardless of the safeguards put in place, just because I don't think we understand how this virus works, and the best way to avoid it.

 greyknight12 wrote:
I hope that the 4+ feet minimum between myself and my opponent across the table will hamper transmission...what’s that movie, “five feet apart”?
Except for the LVO, we aren’t talking about thousands of people packed into a space, we’ve got a couple hundred at most and typically 40k players aren’t the kind of social globetrotters who are likely to come into contact with COVID-19 anyway.

you've got to realize that isn't how this works. There is a fairly large city about 100 miles from where i live, around 9,000 people live there. ONE person, a 64 year old woman traveled to a large city in a neighboring state for a week to attend a wedding. She brought it back with her, never showed any symptoms and within two weeks, this town which had seen no cases all of a sudden has over 300 suspected cases. It was all, contact traced back to the same woman.

Imagine the door handles, water fountains. Everything that a sick person (who might not even know they're sick) touches becomes a form of transmission. As we head into the fall, there is still a large chance this illness will begin to swell with cases again. It's just not worth it to put our lives at risk for a game.

Dysartes wrote:Anyone running events and claiming they're doing the right thing are insane - the right thing to do is to not run the damn events.

Absolutely.

And for anyone saying "I just want to get on live my life!" - I want to tell you that you can. I really do. But here's the thing about viruses and diseases in general. It doesn't just affect you. It affects everyone around you. It affects the people you pass who are going once a week to pick up more food, otherwise they'll starve. It affects the people you pass who go into work to pay their rent. If you're not doing something that's essential, you're potentially putting *everyone* else there at risk. So, it's really not just "oh, if I get it, that was my fault, unlucky me", because you then need to factor in the people who you could now have passed the same problem onto.

Bottom line - event runners shouldn't be running events and putting people in those positions. As much as anyone can say "well, that's up to them to decide to catch it/pass it on or not", the event runners shouldn't have had people make those decisions in the first place.

There have been a lot of posts with the same sentiment but no poster has given their personal benchmark for the when they would feel safe to attend a Tournament. Although a Pandemic, the UK is now in the localised containment phase of surges. Unless we can get a 100% success rate on a future vaccine, (unlikely with anti-vaxxers and Immunodeficiency disorders) there will always be these surges.

I am interested to know from others that won't attend Tournaments,did they ever attend them, do they visit the FLGS for pick up games or just play friends there, if at all. Do they visit Restaurants and Bars now? Will they go to the Cinema?. Or would they change their view if they received a positive anti-body test?

As I posed a lot of questions I suppose I best give some of my answers. The last 40k Tournament I was in was 4 years ago , I. go to my FLGS on the weekend and only play against my Son since the FLGS re-opened, both of us have had Covid early on in the pandemic. I eat out once a week at least and visit friends. Three positive antibody tests, two given by the Transfusion and Transplant Service as I was part of the trial for donating convalescent plasma and one from my NHS Trust due to my Profession.

But here's the thing about viruses and diseases in general. It doesn't just affect you.

I assume you hold same opinion every other year that flu happens, that is also just a virus/disease that you can pass onto others and start a chain leading to other people's death?

The right thing to do every single year must clearly be to not to run events, correct? Take away the choice for people to put their life before someone else's?

Or do you have some threshold as to what is or is not acceptable risk, which allows events in some years and not others, one that maybe is shared by everyone rather than just some like yourself?


If something is considered to be such a crisis that things should not be allowed to happen then our govt should be the ones making it very clear what is not allowed. I have no problem with events being banned per se, but that should come not from individuals screaming they think it is wrong based on their personal opinion of risk but from the govt; that can actually make at least some claim to represent society overall and have a better chance of having considered all the current science and weighed ALL the costs and benefits of what we do, not just now but in a few years time.. They also have to consider what is actually practical - can you lock down people for 2 years (the WHO currently pointing out spanish flu took 2 years to largely disappear) before they ignore that and make their own judgement (as you are) and ignore official advise, leading to potentially worse social unrest.

If you think they have got it wrong then complain at them.

We (in the uk) are being given govt backed discounts to eat out in restaurants; why would game events be worse?

Hesh_Tank_On wrote:
There have been a lot of posts with the same sentiment but no poster has given their personal benchmark for the when they would feel safe to attend a Tournament. Although a Pandemic, the UK is now in the localised containment phase of surges. Unless we can get a 100% success rate on a future vaccine, (unlikely with anti-vaxxers and Immunodeficiency disorders) there will always be these surges.
.

I feel safe atm and tournaments are open here. Cases very low atm and linked to travels to foreign countries. As tournaments doesn't involve(actually moving away from worst affected areas. Worst as　in maybe 10 cases a day) more likely to be hit by meteorite.

If cases starts to increase and come from domestic activity situation changes. Gaming areas were closed once, they can be closed again. So far 0 cases from tournaments all year.

There are a lot of individual factors in play for me beyond setting a bar for when I would feel safe for tournaments. The venue and how many people are rather obvious ones (for example, where I live holding an entire tournament outdoors is not an unreasonable idea). But other factors like table spacing or even, and I am very sad to be saying this, the general political lean of attendees also come into play in determining how safe things are.