Gigs in covid times

[Grumble]

I’ve not been to a gig for a while. Cory Wong is playing in Manchester in October and I’d like to go, but it’s an indoor gig and Mrs Grumble ain’t keen. I wish I could wholeheartedly encourage her to go, but I can’t with the way things are right now. I’m trying to treat it like I’m likely only to get a mild dose if I get covid, so the risk is worth it for the pleasure gained. Is Mrs G too cautious? Am I too optimistic?

[headshot]

Well.

I’m at my first swing festival weekender since February 2020.

It’s been promoted as Covid-secure, mandatory vaccination and testing (LFT though, so self-reporting).

Masks were strongly encouraged.

So I turn up with Frau HS and two friends, expecting to be less than impressed at general attitudes…but I didn’t realise we four would be the ONLY people wearing masks.

This event is like a pre-Covid event. It’s like there’s no global pandemic anymore.

I am NOT happy, but I’m sitting here like a tw.t belligerently wearing my mask, FWIW.

[headshot]

And what’s more, everyone’s dancing in the ceiling.

f.ck knows why that photo’s upside down.

[shpalman]

Which festival is that?

[Gfamily]

And what’s more, everyone’s dancing in the ceiling.

f.ck knows why that photo’s upside down.

Upside down? It's fine for me
only joking...

[discovolante]

Short answer for me is, there isn't really a right or wrong answer. Longer answer: my feelings about this stuff vary wildly day to day. Should I do something fun? I might die of something else the next day anyway. Is the risk if serious illness and/or long covid greater than the cumulative risk of anything else similar that could happen to me? How likely is it that I would pass covid onto someone else afterwards? Is the pandemic going away any time soon and how long am I prepared to wait?

When there were restrictions in place and a path towards reducing numbers I could see the merit in personal sacrifice for collective gain. Less sure now, in part because (unlike you in this particular maybe) me not doing stuff also involves letting other people down, to some extent, also in part because the effects of my personal actions now feel negigble in the grand scheme of things (although perhaps not to the person I infect...). It's a tough one and all I can think about is how relatively unusual it seems to be that we have up until recently lived in an era where we haven't had to think too much about the risks daily activities might bring.

That said, I have a gig coming up on 9th October and I'm feeling quite iffy about it, I'm not sure I'm ready yet. So feel free to ignore all of the above.

I'm sure other people will be here soon with some proper statistics and stuff but well, you asked everyone

[Grumble]

Short answer for me is, there isn't really a right or wrong answer. Longer answer: my feelings about this stuff vary wildly day to day. Should I do something fun? I might die of something else the next day anyway. Is the risk if serious illness and/or long covid greater than the cumulative risk of anything else similar that could happen to me? How likely is it that I would pass covid onto someone else afterwards? Is the pandemic going away any time soon and how long am I prepared to wait?

When there were restrictions in place and a path towards reducing numbers I could see the merit in personal sacrifice for collective gain. Less sure now, in part because (unlike you in this particular maybe) me not doing stuff also involves letting other people down, to some extent, also in part because the effects of my personal actions now feel negigble in the grand scheme of things (although perhaps not to the person I infect...). It's a tough one and all I can think about is how relatively unusual it seems to be that we have up until recently lived in an era where we haven't had to think too much about the risks daily activities might bring.

That said, I have a gig coming up on 9th October and I'm feeling quite iffy about it, I'm not sure I'm ready yet. So feel free to ignore all of the above.

I'm sure other people will be here soon with some proper statistics and stuff but well, you asked everyone

Not sure there is a correct answer as such. But life certainly isn’t back to normal just yet.

[headshot]

Which festival is that?

Bal Break in Torquay.

[shpalman]

Which festival is that?

Bal Break in Torquay.

Well Torbay is only a little bit of a hotspot now, at a case rate of about 400 per 100,000 per week. It's come down from its peak of 620 while England as a whole has come up to about 350 on average. This is 5-6 times higher than Italy, and your death rate is about double that of Italy, and you've got more patients in hospital and in mechanical ventilation beds and/or intensive care, so how come you lot are allowed to do this and we aren't?

The annoying thing here is that the closest we can get to social dancing at the moment is a drop-in lesson or practice session where you dance with the same partner the whole time.

There's a completely unworkable petition going around (I signed it anyway) making the point that dance halls like this are completely different to nightclubs (ok, they are, but I've no idea about how you would codify that in any law or set of guidelines) so can we please do social partner dancing we promise to use Green Passes and wear masks and that.

Aside from mask wearing probably being completely useless when doing physical activity in a closed room in the time of Delta.

They're maybe thinking more about the kind of "balera" at which older people dance liscio by the sea in Emilia and it's true that the over-60's are the age range with the best vaccine coverage, but even at a coverage of nearly 88% (there's essentially nobody who's only had a first dose and is waiting for the second) that's 2.2 million people who'd have quite a high risk of dying from covid if they got it. This is probably why our CFR is 2.5 times bigger than yours.

This is maybe not quite such a consideration for "gigs" which you fellow kids are going to.

But this whole "we're going to do this inherently unsafe thing but with all the safety protocols" as if just saying that makes it safe, well...

Oh and I know some antivax dancers who've been shouting about freedom, unaware, because they are stupid, that their selfishness is what's limiting everyone's freedom.

[shpalman]

(your hospital occupancy is at 20% of its maximum* and your MV bed occupancy is at 26% of its maximum*; in Italy that would be Yellow Zone, risking Orange. And stuff like that isn't even allowed here in White Zone rules.)

((* - I'm assuming the maximum reached during the peak of the wave is similar to the maximum capacity you have))

[headshot]

Torquay is the venue, but the dancers have come from all over the UK. There’s one US teacher here, one Swede. The other US instructors are teaching via Zoom with in-room facilitators. Some UK-based instructors are here too.

Why are we allowed to do this? Because our Populist Govt has decided that the vaccine is a panacea to allow people to get back to normal. And boy, this event is just like a “normal” 2019 event. Full classes with everyone rotating partners.

Frau HS and I have decided not to take part in classes. We’re here by invitation to photograph and DJ. We’re wearing masks for the duration.

We feel like we’re being constantly judged and it’s as if we’ve entered a parallel universe where we’re the ones who are somehow crazy.

Lots of people who I’ve known for years, and who I highly respect, are just mixing and dancing as if nothing’s happened.

[shpalman]

I reckon that thanks to Delta it doesn't make much difference compared to fixed partners and wearing masks, once you have a certain number of people in the room (such that the probability that at least one person is infectious becomes non-negligible). So either don't do these things at all, or let yourself go. Nothing is going to significantly change from now on to make it personally more safe for someone who has already been fully vaccinated.

[discovolante]

If I'm trying to reassure myself, I do a not-very-scientific run through of the chain of events needed for me to end up with a serious problem. It's more of a psychological trick than an actual risk assessment but it helps slightly if I'm facing a situation I'm worried about.

- the likelihood that someone in the room has covid, then
- the likelihood that they are shedding enough virus to infect anyone else (probably quite high given delta, but probably not 100%), then
- the likelihood of me inhaling enough to get infected (e.g. if they are on the other side of a restaurant, perhaps less likely than if they were next to me, even though it is airborne)
- I'm double jabbed, so the likelihood of the virus getting past the vaccine
- the chances of any infection that does get through being symptomatic (about 66% presumably, appreciate this bit may also show a lack of understanding about how vaccines work, and of course asymptomatic infection is bad in that it would increase the risk of me passing it onto others)
- the chances of any symptoms being severe vs just quite unpleasant for a couple of weeks
- the chance of long covid
- the chance of long covid lasting longer than a few weeks or months

The last 2 or 3 are what I'm most worried about, but going through that list gives me *some* reassurance that just being around covid isn't necessarily going to lead to the worst case scenario. I certainly don't want to get ill at all but illness is also something of an unavoidable fact of life.

Of course I'm also quite concerned about the long term physical effects of covid (as happened with Spanish flu) but that seems to be too much of an unknown at the moment, although certainly a risk

I do worry a lot that one day I'll make a decision I'll seriously regret (and the REALLY superstitious part of my brain makes me think that talking about this stuff impacts on how likely it is to happen, but that's daft), but I get that fear whenever I drive down a motorway as well so...yeah

[headshot]

I get that fear whenever I drive down a motorway as well so...yeah

I used to get morbid thoughts about everything that might go wrong with (and around) my motorbike when I was pelting down the motorway at >70mph.

It is not a relaxing way to spend a journey.

[Millennie Al]

It now seems clear that covid will not be eliminated, so pretty much everyone will eventually get it (i.e. unless they are naturally immune or die of something else first). Consider the possibilities when you catch it. You:

• die
• recover after time in ICU
• recover after non-ICU hospitalisation
• recover after thoroughly unpleasant time at home
• recover after a mild illness
• are asymptomatic

and recovery can be with or without long covid, what would you like to do in the period between now and getting infected? How much is it worth delaying the inevitable? Consider that if you're vaccinated, the more serious outcomes become much less likely.

Do you fear infecting someone else? Does that matter if they'll catch it anyway?

[science_fox]

I went to two festivals end of Aug, and was the only one of my group to come back with a pos covid test (mild symptons). Masks non-existant. 1st festival: Beautiful days, 20k people required proof of double vaccine or a certified neg test 24 hrs before. Tested neg afterwards. Following weekend, 2nd festival Solfest 10k, asked people to be sensible and test, no checks. Tested pos afterwards. Incubation times means it could have been either, but the 2nd felt much less safe. Both had outdoors stages and Marquee indoor stages. No social distancing anywhere, but large sites so only when you're at the front of crowd was it actually busy.

Before then I'd been to a piano concert in Stoller Hall (Manchester). Very safe, mandatory masks, groups seated 2m apart, about 25% capacity.


So maybe check what the venue will be like, and consider whether/how much up-front crowd mingling you want to do, or if there's some safer seating?


The bands are absolutely loving being back on stage, and have an extra energy and appreciation which in turn feedsback to a great crowd atmosphere.

[shpalman]

I get that fear whenever I drive down a motorway as well so...yeah

I used to get morbid thoughts about everything that might go wrong with (and around) my motorbike when I was pelting down the motorway at >70mph.

It is not a relaxing way to spend a journey.

If I wanted a relaxing journey I don't think I'd choose to do it "pelting down the motorway at >70mph" on a motorbike.

[headshot]

I get that fear whenever I drive down a motorway as well so...yeah

I used to get morbid thoughts about everything that might go wrong with (and around) my motorbike when I was pelting down the motorway at >70mph.

It is not a relaxing way to spend a journey.

If I wanted a relaxing journey I don't think I'd choose to do it "pelting down the motorway at >70mph" on a motorbike.

On a clear road, it’s a wonderful feeling - as long as your brain doesn’t remind you about the possibility of a chain snapping, or a blowout.

[headshot]

Well, against expectations, we haven't (yet) had any cases reported from our dance festival last weekend.

Looks like the requirement to be vaccinated and show a negative test on arrival (along with a recommendation to test every day whilst there) worked...a good test event - especially as the average age there was about 60!

[shpalman]

Great now WHEN WILL ITALY LET US GO DANCING INSTEAD OF JUST LESSONS WITH FIXED COUPLES WHICH IS FINE BUT I'D LIKE TO GO SOCIAL DANCING OR AT LEAST BE ABLE TO ROTATE THE COUPLES IN A CLASS I MEAN WE'RE ALL USING THE gREEN pASS ANYWAY.

[Bird on a Fire]

Great now WHEN WILL ITALY LET US GO DANCING INSTEAD OF JUST LESSONS WITH FIXED COUPLES WHICH IS FINE BUT I'D LIKE TO GO SOCIAL DANCING OR AT LEAST BE ABLE TO ROTATE THE COUPLES IN A CLASS I MEAN WE'RE ALL USING THE gREEN pASS ANYWAY.

Just wait for headshot's preprint to appear, and then you can cite it as a peer-reviewed publication.

[Bird on a Fire]

TBH I'm pretty sure posts on scrutable count anyway.

[shpalman]

Something on the news just now suggested reopening dance halls (amongst other things) at >90% vaccination, but Italy is only at 75.64% of the over-12s fully vaccinated (or 73% of the whole population with at least one dose according to Our World in Data even if I can't quite make sense of that based on the official numbers) so that corresponds to nearly 8 million more people...

But the news that the Green Pass will be obligatory for work has caused vaccination bookings to triple across most regions, although obviously not necessarily amongst the older people who are at more risk and maybe not so much in the south either.

[shpalman]

Something on the news said that next week (the 30th) there'll be an evaluation of whether the capacity of indoor things like cinemas and concerts can be increased from whatever it is now to something closer to 100%.

Also mentioned was that they'd consider whether to think about looking at the reopening of discos and dance halls.

I mean I don't expect them to be allowed to open on the 1st of October but still, at least the subject hasn't been completely forgotten about.

[shpalman]

Well, Swing'n'Milan.

As well as the lessons, which will probably still require that couples don't switch (signup is strictly in couples for everything apart from solo jazz), there will also be evenings with live music. And we'll see what rules are in place by then and how they want to enforce them.

This time last year the case rates were about 20/100,000/week in Italy, whereas they're now about 30 in Lombardy and 45 in Italy as a whole. And things actually looked fine during September.

Italy-case-rates-AugSep2020.png (48.39 KiB) Viewed 1745 times

That's August and September 2020.

This is August, September, and October 2020:

Italy-case-rates-AugSepOct2020.png (69.11 KiB) Viewed 1745 times

Italy went on to peak in mid November after locks got downed at the end of October; case rates were double the national average around here.

So yeah hoping that something similar doesn't kick off this year.