41Hz Posted March 1, 2020 Share Posted March 1, 2020 Anyone have any thoughts on this? Have a number of gigs lined up over the coming months. I’m not too concerned at the moment as the numbers of cases in the UK is pretty low, but I think it is quite likely to accelerate quickly in the coming weeks as it has in Italy and Korea. Once we get to thousands of cases in the UK I think I’ll be wanting to consider whether I still want a load of drunken possibly infected punters approaching me at gigs. My band mates don’t seem to share my concerns at the moment. Anyone else having these thoughts? Also if people start avoiding pubs anyway then I wonder if they will still be wanting to pay bands to play to half empty pubs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SICbass Posted March 1, 2020 Share Posted March 1, 2020 We‘ve already had our first cancellation from a client. A corporate gala planned for Tuesday is now off. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arthurhenry Posted March 1, 2020 Share Posted March 1, 2020 Dudda, dudda dut, dut, "My Corona". 3 1 10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave_bass5 Posted March 1, 2020 Share Posted March 1, 2020 Although if a venue cancels its out of our control, we (i) have never cancelled a gig due to a virus. And I’m saying this after just finishing our usual Sunday night takeaway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steantval Posted March 1, 2020 Share Posted March 1, 2020 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silvia Bluejay Posted March 1, 2020 Share Posted March 1, 2020 At the moment I'm more concerned about pubs having to cancel due to panicking punters choosing to stay and drink at home, than to any actual risk to us as the band. Things may change, of course. In the past few weeks the main problems would have been people not feeling like braving the storm to go to the pub, but we've been lucky so far. The official advice is still not to panic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gjones Posted March 1, 2020 Share Posted March 1, 2020 The singer in my band has had pneumonia many times. I doubt she would want to sing all night in a bar with a hoard of sweaty, possibly infested, punters, if things get bad and the virus becomes widespread. On a slightly larger scale, my nieces band have been asked to support The Foo Fighters in Valencia in June. Call me a pessimistic, old party pooper, but the chances of The Foos, or any other American band, coming over to Europe to play in front of 20,000 people at every gig, is now extremely unlikely. ......and I was going to be on the guest list. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arthurhenry Posted March 1, 2020 Share Posted March 1, 2020 Apparently it may be only indoor gatherings of 4000+ which will be cancelled. If you go to shops and touch door handles, or are close to people who do, why have any extra concerns about a gig? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
41Hz Posted March 1, 2020 Author Share Posted March 1, 2020 5 minutes ago, arthurhenry said: Apparently it may be only indoor gatherings of 4000+ which will be cancelled. If you go to shops and touch door handles, or are close to people who do, why have any extra concerns about a gig? When I go to the shops I don’t get drunks spitting song requests in my face, shaking my hand or hugging me! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ped Posted March 1, 2020 Share Posted March 1, 2020 And his gigs are 4000+ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arthurhenry Posted March 1, 2020 Share Posted March 1, 2020 3 minutes ago, 41Hz said: When I go to the shops I don’t get drunks spitting song requests in my face, shaking my hand or hugging me! But you may be served by someone who was hugging, shaking hands and spitting at a gig the night before. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
41Hz Posted March 1, 2020 Author Share Posted March 1, 2020 Just now, ped said: And his gigs are 4000+ I actually wouldn’t have an issue to playing to 4000 as there would be security keeping them at a safe distance! Haha 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Jack Posted March 1, 2020 Share Posted March 1, 2020 Chances are that China now has 100,000 cases of coronavirus. The population of China is 1.4 billion. For the arithmetically challenged, that's 1,400,000,000 people. So a full month into the outbreak, one Chinese in every 14,000 has the disease. Looked at another way, out of every 14,000 Chinese there are 13,999 who don't have it. "Yet", I grant you, "Yet". Some more will get it as time goes by, but at the moment the odds are firmly in favour of humanity surviving this. Not all of those 100,000 will die, of course. The Chinese death rate (if we can believe anything their Government says) is a surprisingly high 5%-ish. Estimates for Europe are suggesting that we will see less than 2%, probably 1%. All statistics change over time. That's the nature of things. But if you were to assume, just for the sake of the argument, that one in every 14,000 Brits were to develop the disease, and that 2% of those affected were to die, it doesn't take long to work out that the extra 80 deaths - each an individual tragedy for someone - would represent two weeks' road deaths. You can't sell newspapers, or garner cheap clicks, by publishing this sort of thing. Far better to fire up the panic-stricken auto-headline generator, tell everyone that (1) we're all going to die, (2) it's all the fault of those slitty-eyed b@st@rds in Chinky-land, and (3) that this may affect property prices in the Home Counties. 20 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
41Hz Posted March 1, 2020 Author Share Posted March 1, 2020 11 minutes ago, Happy Jack said: Chances are that China now has 100,000 cases of coronavirus. The population of China is 1.4 billion. For the arithmetically challenged, that's 1,400,000,000 people. So a full month into the outbreak, one Chinese in every 14,000 has the disease. Looked at another way, out of every 14,000 Chinese there are 13,999 who don't have it. "Yet", I grant you, "Yet". Some more will get it as time goes by, but at the moment the odds are firmly in favour of humanity surviving this. Not all of those 100,000 will die, of course. The Chinese death rate (if we can believe anything their Government says) is a surprisingly high 5%-ish. Estimates for Europe are suggesting that we will see less than 2%, probably 1%. All statistics change over time. That's the nature of things. But if you were to assume, just for the sake of the argument, that one in every 14,000 Brits were to develop the disease, and that 2% of those affected were to die, it doesn't take long to work out that the extra 80 deaths - each an individual tragedy for someone - would represent two weeks' road deaths. You can't sell newspapers, or garner cheap clicks, by publishing this sort of thing. Far better to fire up the panic-stricken auto-headline generator, tell everyone that (1) we're all going to die, (2) it's all the fault of those slitty-eyed b@st@rds in Chinky-land, and (3) that this may affect property prices in the Home Counties. Don’t forget the Chinese took very drastic action to contain this. Wuhan was completely locked down and people were confined to their houses. Pretty sure nobody was going to gigs in Wuhan. There isn’t the political will do do that in this country yet. Also we only have around 700 spare ICU beds in the UK and if 10-20% need ventilating once we get to 4-5K cases we could be in a lot of trouble and the death rate would climb,. Based on how quickly Italy’s numbers have increased we might only be 3-4 weeks away from being in that situation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steantval Posted March 1, 2020 Share Posted March 1, 2020 (edited) I’m fairly certain the volume of cases in the U.K. will rise, but to put it into perspective, we currently have 35 confirmed cases in a population of 66 million. Edited March 1, 2020 by steantval Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rich Posted March 1, 2020 Share Posted March 1, 2020 Right now I'm more worried about my Italian holiday in June. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris_b Posted March 1, 2020 Share Posted March 1, 2020 It seems to me that the question is not "if" but "when". The virus is spread during the pre symptom phase so staying away from gigs is not going to be an effective solution. If you gig, work, shop, or just walk around the block you're likely to be exposed. My "medical" advice is that healthy people should carry on. Get exposed and get it over with. If you have underlying health problems isolate yourselves 100% for the next 6 months. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike257 Posted March 1, 2020 Share Posted March 1, 2020 Not so much in the UK, but it's definitely affecting gigs abroad for people I work with (and potentially me soon). I've had various techy and muso friends had things pulled in the Dubai/Bahrain/Saudi area in the last week, another friend had a big Asian tour cancelled, and a few big exhibition/conference events in mainland Europe have had the plug pulled, leaving a lot of production companies in a bit of a hole. I'm due in Italy for some gigs in mid-April. The production manager isn't booking the flights just yet though, he doesn't sound too confident! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
41Hz Posted March 1, 2020 Author Share Posted March 1, 2020 14 minutes ago, steantval said: I’m fairly certain the volume of cases in the U.K. will rise, but to put it into perspective, we currently have 35 confirmed cases in a population of 66 million. Indeed, I’m not concerned now as the chances of getting it are practically zero. Having said that their were only 4 cases in Italy 10 days ago and now nearly 1700, with 560+ today. If it continues with that kind of exponential growth it could become a serious threat very quickly. My question was relating to the impact on gigging if/when the numbers do become significant. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GuyR Posted March 1, 2020 Share Posted March 1, 2020 10 minutes ago, mike257 said: Not so much in the UK, but it's definitely affecting gigs abroad for people I work with (and potentially me soon). I've had various techy and muso friends had things pulled in the Dubai/Bahrain/Saudi area in the last week, another friend had a big Asian tour cancelled, and a few big exhibition/conference events in mainland Europe have had the plug pulled, leaving a lot of production companies in a bit of a hole. I'm due in Italy for some gigs in mid-April. The production manager isn't booking the flights just yet though, he doesn't sound too confident! Good call. The price of airline tickets may well be significantly lower in a few weeks. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
41Hz Posted March 1, 2020 Author Share Posted March 1, 2020 (edited) 19 minutes ago, chris_b said: It seems to me that the question is not "if" but "when". The virus is spread during the pre symptom phase so staying away from gigs is not going to be an effective solution. If you gig, work, shop, or just walk around the block you're likely to be exposed. My "medical" advice is that healthy people should carry on. Get exposed and get it over with. If you have underlying health problems isolate yourselves 100% for the next 6 months. I don’t understand your logic on that one. It’s not really relevant if the spread happens with symptoms or not. You are certainly going to be exposing yourself more spending 4-5 hours in a confined space with 50-60 people crowding around you than you are staying in and watching Netflix. Edited March 1, 2020 by 41Hz Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Woodinblack Posted March 1, 2020 Share Posted March 1, 2020 Our singer is already ready 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Starr Posted March 2, 2020 Share Posted March 2, 2020 New Scientist this week and the WHO are effectively of the same opinion. We are at the tipping point of this becoming pandemic. If that proves to be true it simply means that the disease is out in the wild spreading from person to person in a certain number of areas and the process of tracing and testing contacts of known cases will no longer contain the disease. That doesn't mean we give up just that it looks like a lot of us will get the disease and we will move from contact tracing to hygiene measures as a way of slowing the spread. Slowing the spread is important, it gives healthcare systems a better chance of coping and longer for us to develop counter measures and treatments. In the UK as ever we are in a fortunate position, islands are easier to protect than land borders. I doubt our government has the political will however to take extreme measures to protect us, not a party political statement that, I don't think our system is working well at the moment and if the election result had been different I doubt that it would affect this threat. IMO it looks very likely that we will all be exposed to this disease at some point. On the figures that we have so far which are extremely unreliable maybe 1/5th of us will be very ill with flu like symptoms or worse and some of us won't survive, so far it is looking like 2-3% of the people who get very ill but who knows in a different population with different levels of fitness and different healthcare in place. If the government has the will it will try and limit personal contact, which won't stop the disease spreading but will slow it reaching people. Obviously with a million people all ill at the same time the health care for each would be less than if it were only 50,000 ill at any one time. There are still so many unanswered questions that speculation isn't going to help much but nevertheless there are things we can do to mitigate the effects. The world hasn't really reacted well to mitigate climate change so it'll be interesting to see how we respond to an immediate but lesser threat which will be shared across borders. I found out today that Tokyo ( my son lives there ) has run out of toilet paper, it ran out of masks last week. People there are planning for what they will need if they have to stay at home in isolation for a while, you can see loo roll would be important. We may have more to worry about than keeping the pubs open. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Dare Posted March 2, 2020 Share Posted March 2, 2020 (edited) Edited March 2, 2020 by Dan Dare 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BreadBin Posted March 2, 2020 Share Posted March 2, 2020 Malaria kills over 1200 people a day, every day. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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