Let's don't overcomplicate this. The easy way to get back to big city marathons is this...... Test everyone before the race.

rojo wrote:

kingojamin wrote:

What about spectators for a big city marathon like NYC? Will you test all of them beforehand as well?

No. Do we test all of the grocery store workers or people shopping in a grocery store? This isn't zero risk. It's common sense. In 3-5 months, we should have plenty of testing capability.

People in the grocery store are from a few mile radius. Maybe they've driven 30 miles to go somewhere like whole foods. If they have a mass spreader in the store, cases spike locally. Road races have people from all over the country. Cases spread in several cities.

If you're saying a race with any local participants could go off, maybe. But then how do you control that? All it takes is one guy from Boston who registers under his brother's name in des moines..

If we *could* test that many low-priority people so quickly then we could be testing the entire population as a whole -- and basically get rid of the virus completely.

As far as the math is concerned, the US has over 20,000 official cases per day in a population of 300 million. It's dropping slowly, and social measures are relaxing so it won't continue to drop at its current rate. Let's round up and say that's 30,000 cases in a population of 300 million (fair because many are undiagnosed -- the true number may be much higher even in a few months). That's 1 in 10,000 people infected per day. Let's say the marathon has 50,000 participants, then 5 get infected per day. Say it takes 5 days to test everyone, that's 25 people. Most of them will be asymptomatic. So 25 people are randomly milling around in a group of 50,000... how many get infected?

But yeah, like I said if we did have the capacity to test so many people so quickly in one location then I think we'd be well on our way towards getting rid of the virus.

David S wrote:

As far as the math is concerned, the US has over 20,000 official cases per day in a population of 300 million. It's dropping slowly, and social measures are relaxing so it won't continue to drop at its current rate.

You've made a couple of debatable assumptions there. You're right to say that the number of daily new cases is dropping slowly. Your first problematic assumption comes in the next sentence, though. Social distancing measures have been relaxing (formally and informally) for about a month now. Yet, the new cases are still dropping. Something that you claim will happen isn't happening--at least not yet, and time is running out on the clock of making that claim.

Your point also fails to take into account the fact that the pool of available people who might get the virus is shrinking. We don't know exactly where it is because of lack of testing capability, but we do know the pool is shrinking. Therefore, even if the rate of interactions increases, the rate of increase still may not be enough to sustain an overall increase in daily cases.

Finally, the barn doors are closed on social distancing. We're never getting that one back into the bag of useful tricks again. A critical mass of the population is fed up with social distancing/sheltering in place regulations and aren't going back. It doesn't matter what your politics are or mine, that's simply the way it is.

Pardon me, I misunderstood part of what you said. I understood you to say that daily new cases would increase. You did not say that. You said they wouldn't continue to drop at the same rate they have been. I still tend to disagree, but what you really said is a much more defensible point than what I first understood you to say. My apologies.

Once we are at testing on the scale of on demand testing for tens of thousands of low risk people so they can participate in a non-essential event. We're probably at the point where all of society has opened up again.

So basically, once things are back to normal you can hold a big city marathon.

That's not an epiphany, that is just back at where we started.

This is incredibly stupid. Someone could in theory become infected as soon as they walk away from being tested.

Racing doesn’t work ‘social distanced’, or sanitized. We have to forget about even trying, it’s futile. Races will return when people regain their senses and say ‘f*ck it, we’re gonna go back to normal life.’

666666 wrote:

Can't get past "Let's don't"...

lololololololol

Test turnaround would have to be sooner.

Like, pick up bib. Thurs/ Fri. Test results Sat. Race Sunday.

Avg incubation is five days. Up to 14 days. With the 3 days before showing symptoms, infected being really asymptotically infectious. If u test the week before, You would be playing with fire.

Which means, we couldn’t use the pcr test - the accurate one. Turnaround is days to a week.

We’d need the faster inacccurate ones. Possibly the new spit ones coming out. Can do A lot in a short amount of time cheaper.

rojo wrote:

If you have the testing capacity to test everyone before they race, you hold the race (with only those that test negative). Test everyone when they come to pick up their packets a few days before the race.

Come on. Imagine NYC. People come to pick up their packets 3 days before the race. Take the subway back to their air bnbs. 15 of them get infected in between being tested and running the race. How many people are they exposing to the virus??

We have to look at what the science says. Right now, it says "STAY HOME! " One day, races may resume. Not this year. Most probably not next year. We have to be patient on this one. This virus is not to be taken lightly.

These people are absolutely delusional. There will not be any big city marathons this year at all. Give it up. The only reason I can see that the races have yet to be officially canceled is for insurance purposes. The city has to force cancellation, if they shut the event down on their own they don't get any money from insurance. Also what the hell Rojo? Hold NYC over more than one day? You're acting like a buffoon. Big cities will not shut down over several days just because some people would like to run a foolish race and risk infecting thousands, and we're not paying a cent more than it is already. After taxes NYC costs $277 and if you add another $100 for testing and likely double the initial fee for the race you're looking at $700 to run on a shitty course with what should be terrible crowd support.

This is the first let’s run thread I’ve ever seen where everyone agrees. Rojo , a bad idea but at least you got everyone to agree .

Most people would pay an extra $100 to run Boston or NYC. They are already paying $2K+ between travel and hotels, so an extra $100 is a non-factor.

The biggest hole I see in this plan is if even one person on the start line has coronavirus, they could infect 1000 other runners and cause a new mini-outbreak. We live in a risk-adverse society and I don't think people will accept that risk.

Yep. Put 50,000 runners all breathing heavy together along with a bunch of volunteers after having them travel from all parts of the world.

Do you have any idea reports suggest is the most common method the virus spreads?

....and why are we doing this in the first place?

The Brojos strike again!

I struggled to click through, and I'll try to click through again. But I have serious doubts negligence would work very well. Do you have any idea how many various strains of various diseases everyone in the world are asymptomatic carriers? Asymptomatic carriers are not a new phenomenon.

rojo wrote:

I'd also suggest requiring everyone to get tested

The test doesn't even test for the virus, and it has absolutely no relevance to whether someone is healthy or sick.

Plus many people think the testing itself is dangerous and don't want to be tested.

Rojo suggests it be held on two different weekends. That will not cost only $100 extra dollars.

It’s getting to be pretty obvious that you intentionally put grammatical errors and typos in your posts. I’m assuming because you think it will generate more responses which it probably does considering that I’m responding . Either way it’s pathetic. Focus on the quality of your posts and not the cheap gimmicks.