DCMP and COVID restrictions

[Bochek]

I would like to preface this post with a few disclaimers

• These opinions are of my own, and do not reflect my team or any of its members.
• I appreciate that we are living in difficult times, and running events of this nature is a difficult task
• I am not trying to point fingers at single person or organization, The event noted below is simply an example of a larger problem.
• This is not for discussing the ideals of dealing with COVID. Our province has taken a stronger then average stance on restrictions, however currently there are no provincial restrictions in place.
• I am an immunocompromised individual, I take COVID precautions seriously.

While reading through the team information guide and discussing with others there was a common theme in the reactions.

I would like to highlight a few of the rules that I feel are less then properly thought out. Offer some suggestions on alternatives, and open a discussion on the topic.

Firstly, for those not in the Ontario District, our district championships consist of a 72+ team event, split between two fields (not divisions). All teams in the district were invited to the event, regardless of their rank. The fields are located inside a hockey arena, and are arranged end to end. Any individual team might play their first match on “Field A”, followed by their second match on “Field B”.

Teams are limited to 40 attendees at the event. Teams must submit a list of 40 attendees for the entire event.

I would assume this is driven by venue capacity limits from when the event was being organized. Quite unfortunate for us (a team of 70). It wouldn’t have been a big deal if we could have brought half the team on Friday and the other half on Saturday.

The stands will be divided into equal sized blocks, and each team will be randomly assigned to a block. In order to better ensure fairness and equal access and viewing, teams will be assigned different seating blocks each day

Okay, Maybe not ideal. Hard to watch a match on Field B when your sitting in front of Field A.
If you really need to stop teams from sitting next to each other then perhaps 20 seats near each field is a better layout then 40 seats in front of one. This also makes scouting difficult.

In order to minimize the potential disruptions to scouting activities as a result of multiple fields and assigned seating blocks, a Team Scouting area will be made available in the viewing area above the south pit area. Teams may send up to 6 team members to this area, where large format screens with a full-field-view of matches will be made available.

Up to this point I think I could brush off the rules, shrugged my shoulders and moved on. They’re unfortunate and could have been put together a bit better. Its tough to predict what world we would be living in when organizing this event. But this is starting to seem counter productive. During the drivers meeting today it was noted that there are seats for 200+ people in the “Scouting area”. - 6 people per team and 72+ teams is 432+ people. I understand not every team will have 6 scouts watching the large tv. It just seems counter productive to cram 200 people into a small space instead of just allowing teams to sit where required in the 5000 seat capacity arena.

Attendees will be permitted to eat in the stands of the main
arena (location of the competition fields), but only during the following designated times. 10:00am-10:15am / 12pm-1pm / 3:30pm-3:45pm

“Oh good, they arranged COVID to go away for a few minutes” I said to myself sarcastically. If we are truly tying to stop the spread of COVID it would make more sense to allow people to eat as they see fit, More people surrounding them would be wearing masks. But instead we all have to remove our masks at the same time. Not to mention the lines this will create at the concessions.

My $0.02 on the fix. Let teams sit where they want, or give teams two smaller seating areas, one by each field. Let people eat when they are hungry. FIRST team members by nature are people with above average intelligence, we should be smart enough and gracious enough to protect ourselves and others surrounding us.

Regardless, I am still excited to get one last “kick at the can” as this is the end of the road for our team this season. Thanks to all the volunteers that help make this happen. And good luck to all the teams competing.

[nuttle]

It’s tough. People are trying to do the right things. To be fair, various experts have taken different positions over time. Anchoring is a thing. Neuroticism is a thing. However, we do have quite a bit of solid information by now. Finding the proper balance involves many things, but there are some interventions which are helpful, non-controversial, and generally fairly easy. Others are likely to carry very little benefit, but people like certainty and zero risk – which aren’t there.

It’s a shame this came out only very recently, but this was nice to see: Let's Clear The Air On COVID | The White House.

The main point here is that many people still have the wrong model of transmission, and therefore lean toward interventions which are based on mitigating these. How can this be? Here’s a recent article that examines this question: Why the WHO took two years to say COVID is airborne.

In your case, being immunocompromised raises the stakes – most of the focus now should be on helping those at highest risk to manage these risks. Events I’ve attended have all required either vaccination or proof of a recent negative test. This is the single most effective intervention. Testing for immunity might also be reasonable, but isn’t there as an option. Starting from here means the risk profile differs from earlier points in time. Improved treatments and changes in the pathology of variants also factor in.

Another consideration is community transmission rates. Here’s a good data source for Ontario: Is COVID surging or declining in the GTA? Use our map to see wastewater trends for your area - Project PROTECH.

Personally, I’d do things differently – but certainly follow expert guidance. I’d lean more on recent guidance and consider the track records of the recommenders. The US CDC is still “in the process of updating this page to align with the new COVID-19 Community Levels” (Small and Large Gatherings | CDC). This is the crux of the current dilemma. It’s pretty clear zero COVID policies have serious downsides (and can’t go on forever), but there isn’t a set of practical guidelines from an authoritative source that is recognized by most people. Two+ years in, this is a failing.

So, where does this leave us? We have some individual choice. If we happen to be the people who have to put out these policies for an event, it has fallen to the local level (and onto us). This is a very hard responsibility. People have very strongly held positions, and powerful emotions. No one wants to be attacked – including for risking people’s lives. The whole thing has also been thoroughly politicized, which is spectacularly unhelpful.

So I’m mostly just grateful not to have to deal with being in the position of putting out these rules. To be able to have events, I am happy to comply with the rules. (For NC FRC, they have been pretty reasonable.) I look forward to getting past this whole episode. I hope we learn from it, but don’t really expect this will be so.

But, I would push a little more on ventilation, and worry less about social distancing (let alone surface cleaning and the like). However, this might cause controversy and invite ire. So, I have a lot of sympathy for the organizers and am willing to accommodate.

[cad321]

The seating arrangements for Thursday and Friday just got announced.

To say I am truly and utterly disappointed would be an understatement here. As an example, my team (3739) has decent seats of the Science field on the Thursday, and then mediocre views at best of the technology field on Friday. But because matches switch constantly between fields, we could be playing the science field potentially a good part of Friday, while having to watch across an entire hockey stadium attempting to get a glimpse of what is going on…

As a spectator on my team for this event, I am genuinely wondering if my event experience would be better if I just stayed home and watched the live stream…