HIMSS 2020, a conference of ~45000 attendees from 90+ countries is still scheduled to go forward at Orlando Convention Center March 9-13.
I was actually blocked by HIMSS PR folks on Twitter for inquiring about their preparedness plan... which is inadequate to say the least. To top it off, HHS Secretary Alex Azar is a keynote speaker, so now cancelling or major attendees/sponsors pulling out is also a political issue.
This could actually be a catalyst for major transmission. It’s ridiculous.
Probably not a particularly substantive comment but in my experience hubris abounds in healthcare. Even if this did happen in would be explained away as the shortcomings of a few rather than any systemic cultural issue.
No, it's the healthcare IT people. Imagine people with the combined hubris of physicians and SV SWEs, and the skills of neither. It has to be the most Dunning-Kruger conference on Earth.
Las Vegas is hosting it's third largest annual convention (130,000) on March 10 [1], though that has few international attendees. The fourth largest (100,000) in late April is notably international [2].
Worth noting that unlike GDC, both of these conventions feature equipment that is too expensive to demo at a customer site. Disruption of either of these two conventions will come at a cost.
Just to proactively avoid any misunderstanding here, I'd like to point out that the virus is expected to spread in the US at this point. It's not a matter of _if_ you will be exposed, but rather _when_. From a logistical perspective, it's important that cases are spread out over time as much as possible in order to avoid the health system being overwhelmed.
I don't think the poster intended that to mean the conferences should go ahead in the face of specific risks just because of the money involved. It was a simple statement regarding the economic impact of the virus.
Consider emailing the City of Orlando about this. Their response will be public record in accordance with Florida open records law. They know this, and will act accordingly. Whatever their position, it’ll be in writing.
I just asked them on Twitter if they are indeed blocking people for asking about COVID. I wonder how many people they are prepared to block for asking a polite question.
Badges should indicate whether you're an elbow sneezer or a hand sneezer, so that mutually compatible people can elbow tap or hand shake as appropriate.
Japanese bow, Indian Namaste, Roman Salute, my preference is Fist-Bump that at the end transforms into a friendly game of rock-paper-scissors (which is universally[1] understood).
It is not preparedness. If you have active virus it stays on, get one of the staff as in the cruise and if he or she has no symptoms... it is not individual preparedness. It helps but not that much.
It really depends on what you think the risk level is. The theater holds about 3500 people.
If you believe the numbers, about 1 in 35000 people in mainland China has the [active] virus. If you filled the theater with random mainlanders, independent of if they are obviously sick, you would get a sick attendee once in 10 events.
I totally agree. If you did have a sick attendee, there would be a lot of exposure. 3500+ a few hundred.
I also assumed that attendees were unlikely to contact an infections person, develop the disease, and progress themselves to a infectious state during the course of their trip.
From what I have read, the median time from exposure to onset of illness is 4 days (interquartile range 3-5 days), and from onset of symptoms to first hospital admission is 2 (1-4) days.[1] If you believe the CDC, WHO, and EU that asymptomatic transmission is minimal, the latter number is the risky period.
This seems wrong to me. I don't know statistics well enough to say why, and I may be totally off, but I'm thinking like "birthday paradox" type of thing.
Anyone with more statistics knowledge have a better answer?
It wasn't meant in a humoristic way at all but as a reminder to those that plan to attend that they are gambling with their lives. My sense of humor has taken an unscheduled leave of absence without any kind of indication when it will return. If ever.
Please don't spread this sort of misinformation. At this point, widespread transmission in the US is expected. You _will_ be exposed and most likely infected at some point. Most cases are mild! The concern is logistical in nature - if the health system is overwhelmed, those with severe symptoms won't be able to get the care they need. It's important to slow the spread as much as possible.
Yes, in a desperate attempt to slow the spread so that health systems aren't overrun. The difference in outcomes for those with severe symptoms (of any sort, from any illness) is vastly different based on the availability and quality of medical care.
Exactly. So, what are the chances that something 3.5 times larger would have a bigger chance of resulting in new clusters? Better than one that I would personally take my chances on. Just one infected person visiting an event like that, just one, and you'll have a whole new set of clusters to deal with up to one month later. Just like the authorities of .ch have decided that's a chance they'd rather not take the same would hold for visitors of events like that. And as the number of infected people grows so the chances of a hit. Keep in mind that this event is not tomorrow and that between now and then there will be plenty more people infected.
Certainly possible. If you book the event in corporate environment, the organiser may not have your direct email, and whatever system or person gets the notification may not forward it to you.
There's some historical motivation not to touch it. The summer games haven't been cancelled since World War 2. In fact, the only times it has been cancelled were in the middle of the World Wars (1916, 1940, 1944).
I'm sure they did. But that still doesn't make them contagious. They don't jump from person to person irrespective of whether that person is a civilian or military. I'm using contagion in the medical sense, not in some kind of contrived way to make an unstable region erupt in war because there is war nearby.
Though, truth be told, I wouldn't be surprised at all if COVID-19 somehow became a factor in wars being started.
not sometimes. they go hand in hand. Ebola also spread in DRC during some of the worst fighting. It's an anticipated side effect to disrupt medical supply chains of the enemy to avoid their ability to recover.
people who purchased plane tickets and booked hotels to watch the Olympics are gonna be pissed...unless they can either get their refund or also postponed bookings for free.
They'd also be pissed if they paid all that money and brought an epidemic back to their community as a souvenir, or got locked into quarantine on their way home.
Atlanta gets about 140,000 tourists _per day_ and has one of the busiest airports in the world. A couple thousand for the Trials is a drop in the bucket of risk.
This sadly isn’t true. Nearly all trip cancellation insurance excludes epidemics and pandemics. You need instead “cancel for any reason” insurance, which you can only acquire about 2-3 weeks after your first purchase.
Now, if the event is cancelled, you might get your refund that way, but maybe not.
"Insurance companies designated the coronavirus as a foreseen event between January 21 and 24, which means policies sold after those dates aren't going to cover issues related to the outbreak, said Karen Johnson, a travel insurance program leader with USI Insurance Services."
It will be interesting to compare the death tolls from the covid-19 to the economic recession it causes.
For example, the there were an estimated 500,000 additional cancer deaths between 2008 and 2010 due to unemployment and healthcare cuts [1]. When you consider other diseases, you are easily in the millions dead.
The summary of the article says 40,000 extra deaths for the cancers studied, is the 500,000 an extrapolation to other cancers?
I don’t think we can separate out the economic costs of spread prevention in comparison though. If we didn’t try to stem the spread if the virus, health systems would be even more overwhelmed and that would by itself lead to many more deaths from other medical causes, in addition to more deaths from the virus.
I think there clearly is a balance to be struck between measures to slow or stall the spread of the virus and the cost of those measures, and as you point out that cost is not just monetary but can also be measured in lives. The problem is we can’t know for sure where that balance point is.
You guys do realize that the US is notably alone in the developed world in offering no government healthcare insurance? You guys wouldn’t believe how different our attitude is of recessions.
People do not like having their plans disrupted, regardless of reasons. I'm not saying that they'd go regardless of safety, i'm saying they're looking for reasons to get refunded and/or reimbursed (or re-scheduled), so that they don't lose out.
I'd wager most travel insurance doesn't cover half as much as people would expect it to.
A few years ago I was travelling abroad, and someone broke into my rental car and stole my suitcase which had my passport inside. Both my travel insurance through my bank, and car rental insurance wouldn't cover any of it (they shimmed the lock open, so there was no damage to the vehicle).
Since then I've just opted for the lowest cover which will cover emergency medical costs, and kept the rest in a rainy day fund.
That is pretty high risk and irresponsible - imagine traveling to the US without travel insurance and you could be on the hook for 100s of thousands USD for a small hospital visit!
Travel insurance is usually quite cheap, about 100-150 EUR per year in Norway
I was speaking from the perspective of a US citizen who has health insurance which will cover me internationally although I may have to spend out of pocket initially. If you live somewhere that won't cover you for health expenses in other countries then, yes, it makes sense to buy travel insurance. However, note that in many cases, travel insurance mostly just pays to get you back to your country of origin as quickly as possible with the minimum of medical treatment.
It probably varies and you'll be paying out of network rates and it may not cover prescriptions in any case. But, if there are gaps that are of concern, you may want a supplemental international travel health insurance plan instead of "travel insurance" in any case.
I've always been covered for international travel as far as I know. Fortunately never had to test how well it worked.
I do buy travel insurance now and then but it's mostly to cover costly cancellations or expensive rescue/evacuation costs when those factors are relevant.
You spent more on travel insurance than what real insurance would cost. If you had renters (or auto insurance but that deductible is much higher) insurance you would be able to file a claim to recover your stolen goods.
As with any insurance policy, travel insurance is only as good as the words written on the paper (e.g. read it very carefully)
Did you use a credit card for the rental card? Plenty of cards offer travel insurance and anecdotally I've heard they don't put up much of a fuss for pay outs.
Plus, if you have renters or homeowners insurance, it should cover the stole items.
In other words, the insurance industry is a scam, because the trick you into thinking they cover it all, but in essence only cover the most meagre of situations.
They _should_ get bankrupted, if they don't themselves buy insurance against being bankrupted!
Seriously wondering about SXSW. Hugh Forrest keeps pumping out blog posts about events, but no answers to questions about covid and no transparency on the SXSW site.
I live in downtown Austin and just contacted my city council representative asking them to cancel SXSW, or if not to institute some type of preventative measures. For anyone also in town, I encourage you to do the same, or for those coming in from out of town contact @MayorAdler on Twitter with your concerns. The latest update (yesterday) from @AusPublicHealth was "Dont worry, we're tracking Austin residents who recently visited China." Austin residents, really? What about the 70k people from around the world who will soon be here!! Not to mention there are now major outbreaks in four other countries besides China. Inept.
I understand the caution but I'm glad SCaLE is still on! I've been attending for years and now coming from out of town. Makes me think about responses to COVID-19/coronavirus on a scale from open-source/bottom-up to institutional/top-down. The SCaLE announcement definitely fits the open-source/diy approach.
They've gotta just be working on retooling it to a webinar before the announcement or something. SV in general is very on the ball about the virus - I doubt even their speakers would show up if they tried to hold it.
We'll see. RSA happened in SFO this week. I'm at a couple of (smaller but with international participation) events in the West the next couple of weeks. To be honest, the cancellations so far have been somewhat random. Lots is still going on and people are traveling to events that are happening. Of course, that could all change.
Waiting to book my hotel / air for Next until the end of next week to see what happens. I'll probably opt for the insurance for the first time if I do end up booking.
RSA happened this past week At Moscow’s center in SF. Some observations :
- Hand sanitizer stations
- Workers cleaning door handles
- only a few wore face masks
Not tech related but Ultra Music Festival is coming up in a few weeks. Wonder how high the risk will be considering they are cancelling conferences and also I saw Geneva Auto Show is cancelled.
I'm curious how it's going to hit the remainder of the NBA season and upcoming NCAA basketball tournament. What choices they're going to make given the crowds. The responsible thing to do, three weeks out, will surely be to cancel the NCAA tournament, and or only broadcast the games on TV.
I know there have been isolated instances in the past where a professional game is still played and broadcast on TV, but there is no general public in attendance at the game.
That would be a pretty radical thing to do in any area that doesn't have specific cases and needs that level of quarantine, but I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility. Otherwise the entire season is postponed, and that's a lot of sponsorship dollars and network TV that's left empty.
Any other indie devs in the thread? What do you like about events like GDC? Have you found it paid off financially to meet people or learn thing while there?
To make math work, you need to arrange multiple viable meetings ahead of time. They don’t just happen because you show up to Moscone with a GDC badge. And such meetings don’t even require a GDC badge...
There’s every chance you could do these meetings at other times of the year, but publishers might be in other cities.
As for learning, there’s great content, but GDC Vault is a far better value than an all-access ticket, and the sessions are happening when you should be having meetings. (That means the randos you’ll bump into aren’t the people who you’d want to meet with...)
Depends on how small you are but it’s extremely important for business meetings if you want to speak/pitch to publishers, VCs and others. Everyone is there. Obviously you don’t actually have to attend the conference proper to setup meetings and you usually need to set them up in advance.
Conferences themselves are great for networking which can be great for fostering business relationships in the future. The talks themselves can be extremely variable in quality but can be a good source of inspiration. Lots get posted online (and you get access to all the GDC talks through the conference pass) these days which feels like a better fit to delivery for that side of things.
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We had booth space reserved at GDC and we're very interested in indies and getting some cool games on board. We're live with Rocket League and, by March 16th, we'll be live with CS:GO and a couple of others.
Hit us up in our Discord (on our website) or me personally (Co-founder) if you're interested.
I mean, there's still hope that existing indicators are wrong and that the virus isn't spreading like it seems to be. But absent that, at this point I think we have to just assume that all major international events will be impossible through at least next fall.
Some of the US Coronavirus evacuees from China were not handled properly, according to a whistleblower. One plane landed in the Bay Area. Better to be cautious at this point.
“ U.S. Health Workers Responding to Coronavirus Lacked Training and Protective Gear, Whistle-Blower Says”
That's it! They remind me of old school bubble chambers used in particle accelerators. Momentum carrying things mostly in one direction, but every now and again something just coils inward until it runs out of energy.
It probably depends on your circle of friends and acquaintances but for at least a decade in text messages and social networks I have seen people use airport designations in place of the city they represent. For example,
“Spending next weekend in SEA then staying with friends in MPS before returning home to SFO.”
So no, SFO is not only ever unambiguously the airport.
I believe the combination of more frequent flying, booking tickets ourselves online (rather than by telephone) and increased communication on devices have combined to result in this quirk of language.
That and I think there's a certain (not so) subtle "I'm such an in the know traveler that I know even the obscure airport codes like EWR" vibe associated with using them. (And, yes, I'm guilty.)
Most people outside of San Francisco would know that you mean 'San Francisco' when you say SFO, though. Same as I think of Seattle when I see SEA, Dallas when I see DFW, St. Louis for STL, etc.
Inside the city that's not always the case, but even when you're abbreviating sports teams and the like, it's common to use the airport code to refer to the city name if they match up so well.
Many people who sysadmin machines/networks/routers in disparate places name them after their closest major/international three-letter airport code. I have a bunch of boxes named 'ewr{1,2,3}', 'sfo{1,2,3}', et c.
You will frequently see this in traceroutes, for router hostnames. Some people use the meta-airport-codes (e.g. NYC instead of JFK/LGA) too.
In Springfield and St. Louis, MO we often referred to the cities by their airport codes SGF and STL. But those are both more plausible abbreviations in their own right than SFO.
My rather small and unknown city, Canberra, is not regularly referred to as CBR in verbal conversation, but it's been adopted as part of the city's tourism brand.
interesting point, never thought about this. If containment strategies include limiting number of people at events (as was done in Switzerland) then this would really impact abilities of candidates to rally. Sanders here has more to loose than Trump I think
ITT: Lots of people seemingly unaware that the cities hosting these events on average _already_ (currently and will continue to do so throughout the coming months) receive 100,000+ tourists _per day_ and nothing will stop that.
The risk profile of transmission is unchanged whether they are canceled or not.
You do realize that a crowded convention with a lot of talks, parties, and meetings is a different thing altogether right? Also, that every action to curb reasons to travel helps and is appreciated?
It seems odd to dance around the issue like that. I mean, I get it, we all know why its being postponed, but it seems weird to not say something about coronavirus risk.
Or be from the future. Granted, this announcement isn't that major that I expect it to become a significant part of any historical record, but if someone from the future is looking through the GDC records and comes across this, is would be nice to give them a bit of context instead of making them search around to find out what else was going on in the world at the time.
It could be taught within the context of economics:
> The asset bubble of the late 2010s was finally popped by a minor pandemic, initiating the Final Great Recession of 2020. The Final Great Recession led to the abolishment of all Central Banks and the outlawing of all public stock markets. Strong nationalist economic policies characterized the remainder of the decade.
I think there would need to be a violent revolution to get rid of public stock markets. This would not happen because of a measly recession or depression, even if tens of millions die from the virus at the same time. I mean what is America if it's not the host for the stock market. Do we even have an identity not related to money? 90% of people at all class levels esp in software work for publicly traded companies or companies that desperately are working to become publicly traded. As an American most of the decisions that influenced your upbringing, your interests, your housing, your transportation, your hopes and dreams, your leisure activities, and indeed even the decision of your parents to have you was a consequence of those sacred numbers moving a certain way. We know no other force to tame and guide our society.
John and Jane Q. Public will go back to hating the stock market like they did 2008-2015, shortly after thinking they were smart to rent not buy a home so they can put more money in their Robinhood account. Meanwhile the big players will accumulate, things will go back to normal by this time next year, and John and Jane Q. Public will be saving rainy day money they will eventually use to FOMO back in on the same shares $RICHGUY bought from them at the lows. This is the American way.
You just have to look at the front page of 'hacker' 'news' for the last few weeks, it's completely dominated by the mexican beer virus. no technology is being discussed here.
I think its implied since they’ve already mentioned it on their homepage before.
> The Game Developers Conference will take place as planned in March, and we are watching closely for new developments around the Novel Coronavirus (COVID19 or 2019-nCoV) situation in China to keep the GDC community appraised of the latest updates. This dedicated page will keep you posted on new information, as well as our approach to keep our attendees healthy and safe.
People with mild cases aren’t getting counted in the same way so that number is likely very incorrect. What we know is that we are very far of the death toll of seasonal flue which is estimated to be around 291,000 - 646,000 globaly.
That's like saying "I planted an oak tree last year. It's smaller than the pine trees that have been growing here for 50 years, therefore oak trees are smaller than pine trees"
The death toll is currently at 3,000 about 2 months after the Coronavirus first appeared in one location. The seasonal flu is caused by viruses that have been constantly circulating all around the world for years or decades. You can't really compare total deaths at this point.
I was actually blocked by HIMSS PR folks on Twitter for inquiring about their preparedness plan... which is inadequate to say the least. To top it off, HHS Secretary Alex Azar is a keynote speaker, so now cancelling or major attendees/sponsors pulling out is also a political issue.
This could actually be a catalyst for major transmission. It’s ridiculous.