36,000+ of those in China have already recovered. The news is stating that China has it relatively under control. Whether that is the truth or not and whether they can maintain control of it, I guess we'll have to wait and see.

It's also not clear as to what extent other countries will be able to handle the outbreak. Clearly poorer 3rd world countries will be especially at risk.

Switzerland just banned large gatherings of more than 1k people for the next two weeks.

No Geneva Motor Show, no concerts, sports stuff etc.

That's just great...US workers without protective gear assisted in coronavirus evacuation.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/healt...leblower-says/

Yeah I'm not so sure that this virus is going to do anything to the WSOP. In the desert it won't survive as easy in the heat, but more importantly -- although we're prepping for a breakout, it hasn't happened yet

I would say your second paragraph is totally wrong.
In 3rd world countries, people move around far less and therefore don’t come into contact with lots of different people. Hence there being next to no cases in Africa.
This virus has spread to the west because of westerners travelling from China whilst carrying.

LOL. That's one heck of an assumption. What in the world would the desert heat have to do with the spread of the virus? It spreads person-to-person, not person-to hot sand to-person. Plus, there is not yet any study or evidence that heat affects this particular virus.

There is an awful lot unknown about this virus. For instance, close to 100 of the people that were released in Guandong Province, China after recovery (symptoms gone, cheek and nose swabs negative, etc.) were called back for anal swabs. Of those, 13 of the swabs came back positive for the virus! It is unknown yet whether they are still infectious or if it is an active form of the virus.

It is also still unknown the actual morbidity rate of the disease. According to official counts, it's running about 2% to 3% in total. Compare that with the 0.1% morbidity rate of the flu. However, there may be many un-diagnosed, uncounted cases of infection, just as there may be some uncounted deaths. Still, an apparent morbidity rate that is possibly 20+ times the morbidity rate of the flu is scary. Especially since the transmission rate is much higher than the flu, plus it will be at least 12 months before a vaccine is developed, prepared and widely available.

As of yesterday afternoon, there are verified infections in 50 countries. So far, most show an expansion of the number of confirmed infections starting about 2 weeks after the first infection appears, despite best efforts to contain it.

There is no doubt that we are looking at the start of a worldwide pandemic with the potential to cause deaths on the order of the 1918 Spanish Flu, in the millions. While medical science is far advanced from 1918, we can at least expect rapid spread of the disease and severe changes in societal behavior.

I don't think it is unreasonable to speculate that the WSOP may get cancelled this year.

In 3rd-world countries, far less people seek medical treatment from modern facilities. Viral infections historically spread much wider in such countries. The first (and only so far) confirmed case in WHO's 'African Region' showed up in Algeria three days ago.

Follow WHO reports here: https://www.who.int/emergencies/dise...ation-reports/

As it relates to WSOP, this is much more salient point than convo's about your chance of dying if infected. Convos about senior event being the risky one are ludicrous. All events carry the exact same risk. The risk is spreading the infection.

Its hard to come up with an event more perfect for the spread of a virus like this than than the WSOP . Combo of mass volume of of people, from all over the world, close proximity extended periods of time, touching/sharing cards/chips, rails, and constant movement of players and dealers from table to table. I tried to think of an event of this scale as perfect for spreading of the virus and couldn't . maybe air travel in general? But even for that WSOP type event seems to be better suited for spread of a virus.


Be totally honest. How many times per day on average have you gone to pokernews to see yourself referenced in that article. be honest. anything less than 2 and I know you are lying.

Who pissed in your avocado on toast?

-BD

Last time I looked was a day after it was published. I looked at it once before that. I checked if the link was still good before I quoted it yesterday.

I've seen the pokernews article 3 times in total and only read it twice.

I've had my own articles published several dozen times in another field under my real name. None of it was a major achievement in my mind. None of it was a big deal. The pokernews mention is not a big deal either. However, it is very timely in that it concerns a major issue as it relates to an event that is a big deal to many, including myself. And it has become more relevant now than when the pokernews mention came out.

Because China can do stuff like quarantine a whole city at the drop of a dime. And people actually have to listen. Not so much in other places like the UK and the US.

Honestly I'd much rather be in China for this thing now. Also if I ever got it I'd rather get treated there.

Stock market starting to look like Grimstarr's graph this is sick.

I'm worried about the effect on the economy. Some people with retirement savings have seen main event buy ins disappear from their account in less than a week.

I had a couple K on Betterment and wasn't liking the loses. I pulled it out yesterday morning. People with 100k+ lost a main event buy in for sure.

People closer to retirement have lost multiple high roller buy-ins. This is terrible.

Once case found at WSOP will end it immediately and then havoc will ensue.

If this virus is still around the US in May, there is no way they can go ahead with the WSOP.

My vote is that live events will be a no go.

Depends how you define breakout.

One person infected 2 months ago and now it's in 28 countries. That's even with China's quarantine measures. Yeah that seems unconcerning.

But yeah better to wait until the "breakout" happens before we do anything.

"I've had my own articles published several dozen times in another field under my real name. None of it was a major achievement in my mind. None of it was a big deal. The pokernews mention is not a big deal either."

Internet forum rules prevent me from turning this into a meme potentially featuring a will ferrell character.

Now is the perfect time for the WSOP to announce the doubling or even tripling of the number of online gold bracelet events (and also smaller daily circuit ring events). The reason that now is the perfect time is because they still don't have to name the CoronaVirus as a reason for doing so.

And as I had already mentioned earlier, two Main Events this year:

10k online and 100k live. The two winners face each other at the end of the year for the undisputed title.

You are chock full of wonderful ideas. Have you considered starting a blog or someone sort of online newsletter that people could subscribe to?

Spanish Flu infected 30% and killed 5-10% of world's population. We're not going to see a 5-10% death rate even if somehow every human on earth gets infected. And anyhow swine flu killed nearly a million people and nobody gave a **** in the end.

1-3% are the top assumptions for corona mortality rate, it could be a lot lower if there are many asymptomatic carriers, which is probable coz of the cases popping up everywhere.

Spanish flu also killed off young people who go to school/work and keep the economy running. This nearly exclusively kills old people, just like ordinary flu.

This is either going to crap out like ebola or maybe blow like the swine flu did but with more paranoia and closed borders. if that happens once the news cycle goes on to the recession we'll quickly forget about the few 100,000 dead pensioners whose lives were cut short by maybe 10 years max anyway. n/o to old people, I worry about old people in my family like everyone else but this isn't the next ebola

Just wondering if there is a noticeable drop in card room attendance around the country.

This thread is a depressing reflection on the thought processes of the 2+2 poker community. Disgusting.

-BD

I would assume that the WSOP organisers, the casinos, and the hotels would like to stay open for business even if there is an outbreak, but I would also assume that the government will ultimately make their decision for them, like it has in multiple other countries, where restrictions on public gatherings have happened because of "government advice", and in some places because of swiftly-enacted laws.

FWIW, facebook has voluntarily canceled a 5000-person conference due to happen in California in May (source), and facebook tends to be quite good at spotting and predicting worldwide trends. (By using AI on 2 billion newsfeeds, it probably knows more about Coronavirus transmission rates and locations of new outbreaks faster than the WHO).

In other news, the Harvard epidemiology professor Marc Lipsitch predicted that 40-70% of humanity will be infected this year (source). Now wash your hands.

The nice thing about ebola was that the person who got it often died before they could spread it to someone else. Viruses are getting smarter and trying to find the sweet spot.