What might look like a local airport at midnight is the international terminal at Chicago O'Hare around 1PM today. Took me less than 5 minutes from entering the terminal to get past security and to my gate.

Couple more people showed up since then but still feels very much like a post-apocalyptic world.

‘Overwhelmed and Terrified’: Las Vegas’ Reopening Backfires Terribly

https://www.thedailybeast.com/las-ve...rges-in-nevada (by: Pilar Melendez - Jul 17, 2020)

"Casinos have been open for weeks—undeterred by 123 visitors who tested positive, a Caesars employee who died, and a hospital system reaching the breaking point..."

Vegas casino union reports 22 deaths of workers, relatives

https://apnews.com/708a870607870f5b774daad345bdfe50 (Jul 18, 2020)

"A union representing workers in Las Vegas casinos has reported 22 deaths and 352 hospitalizations of its members or their family members since March..."
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Ohio (Tweet by: former Poker Players Alliance president Rich Muny)

Massive waitlists at the only open Southern California poker room on Bravo

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

Those infection numbers keep on rising. It looks like it's rising linearly rather than exponentially. When do you think it will peak?

not for a few weeks id say . it would seem like vegas would have to be the last place to open seeing that all their traffic comes from all over the globe. Im in FL and the average person here is beyond ****ing stupid. its peaking hard right now and people are out in gatherings , eating out in groups like nothing is going on . i think it will be worse than new york here in the next few weeks. maybe the epicenter of this disease will travel state to state until herd immunity happens because theres zero chance these morons are doing anything precautionary .

This seems tough to say because the places where cases are rising now are not really the places anyone is talking about. Arizona peaked around 10 days ago and is now pretty clearly declining. Florida and Texas seem to be around their peaks now and I would be surprised if they don’t decline in the next week.

But cases have more than tripled in Ohio in the last month, and they just set a new daily record yesterday. North Carolina set a new record today. And Pennsylvania, Virginia, Illinois, and Minnesota have all seen cases roughly double in the last couple weeks. Who knows where they are headed?

dont worry. the administration will be fudging the numbers to make this pandemic "go away" by redirecting numbers and statistics handled by the CDC and instead handling it personally at the administration.

This decision by the administration is absurd. But it shouldn’t affect the data most people are relying on for following the daily infection and death numbers.

Sites like worldometers and covidtracking are essentially crowdsourced from state and local government sites and releases.

The CDC data is more “official” but has always been a few weeks behind in any case.

Cases are peaking in the most populous states (e.g. Florida, Cali, Texas) right about now or have already peaked (e.g. Arizona). Smaller states, as Nick pointed out, still have rising numbers.
Nationwide deaths are projected to go something like this (peaking around Aug 10th):

New York State has had 32,500 deaths. While the situations in Miami and Fort Lauderdale are obviously terrible, there's basically no way Florida gets close to NY's numbers. Florida has reported about 5000 deaths so far, and it will probably take until November to get to half of NY's total.

Yeah, so basically if you're relatively wealthy and/or healthy, you're fine. The people lack bread? let them eat cake.

Ya man relegate the old and infirmed to solitary while the young and fit party at the ozarks

Here's an idea:

- For one year only, the WSOP Main Event is $100k buy-in.
- All players and event staff go into an NBA/MLS-style bubble and quarantine for 14 days.
- Players and staff are routinely tested to make sure everything is safe.
- Tournament is broadcast on ESPN/PokerGo.
- 10% of entry fees are donated to COVID relief or health care-related charities.

There's probably not enough TV money in poker to justify the expenses and headaches related to this and big time players may balk at the long quaratine just to play one event, but it would solve one of the major challenges of holding a 2020 WSOP by shrinking the player pool to a manageable level. It would also give ESPN some content, which they must be especially starved for right now. Something like this could help put poker back in the public's consciousness by dominating ESPN reruns like the Moneymaker WSOP did in the summer of 2003.

The $10k entry fee of the 1972 WSOP is equivalent to $60k in today's dollars, so you could argue that a small field high roller event consisting mostly of pros and a few rich whales is more in keeping with the spirit of the WSOP than the massive field 8000+ player donk-fest anyway.

Just for reference, the NBA bubble costs $150mil.

So even if they could do a super low cost version of that and spend only $20k/person, that would leave $70k per player in the price pool.

FWIW, right now I am a 5min walk from here:
https://twitter.com/rbbabendschau/st...55335989653504

Other than having to wear a mask in shops, Corona seems to be pretty much done in Berlin.

chances of the 2021 being postponed? is it o/u 15% ?

Easily over 15%

I'm guessing it's over 33%.

How do you define "postponed"?

Since the 2021 WSOP hasn't been scheduled yet, that definition is pretty important. There's obviously a significantly higher chance of "a 80+ bracelet WSOP in Las Vegas not being completed by mid July" than "there won't be any live poker WSOP events in 2021".

Gg

This depends entirely on a vaccine IMO. No vaccine - extremely high chance of postponement/cancellation/major changes to event. Vaccine available - very high chance it goes ahead in whatever format they want.

That's postponed.

That's cancelled.

I gues 15% was uber low then huh?

and my definition of postpone is that no tourneys will get fired up in last week of may or first week of june. so essentialy the start date i going to be 3-4 weeks than usual (which its usually last week of may)

If you want to be like Marie Antoinette, or even Thomas Malthus, that's your choice. Take your cake and shove it however.

The fact is, that if you can work remotely from home, or are on a retirement income, you ARE better off than if you are forced by circumstances to go out into the world every day.... especially regarding people in the vulnerable classification. People with the means to do so, likely will stick close to home without being legally forced to do so.

That says nothing like the disdain you presume for people who have to work,out in public, to support themselves or their dependents.

That some people are not as bad off as others doesn't mean that the worse off don't deserve relief appropriate to their circumstances.

Pandemic sends Las Vegas Sands to net loss of nearly $1 billion in the second quarter (CDC Gaming)

https://www.cdcgamingreports.com/pan...econd-quarter/

"The financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in Macau, Las Vegas, and Singapore decimated Las Vegas Sands second-quarter results, sending the company to a net loss of nearly $1 billion during the three-month period that ended June 30.

Company executives, during a conference Wednesday, said factors in each market will dictate the prognosis for recovery.

'We’re in a world of hurt here,' Las Vegas Sands President Rob Goldstein said of the company’s business in Las Vegas, which is highly dependent on filling the massive Sands Expo and Convention Center."

If you think a 15% chance of a vaccine by next spring is uber low, then yes. If not, then no.