@Earl said in [I Say Cancel The Season\!\!\!\!](/post/1130859) said:
I agree with this but my point is that once someone gets sick you then need to isolate everyone that has been in contact with them and on and on it goes.
Well that isn't quite accurate.
Have they isolated 100% of all connections to the current 249 confirmed cases of coronavirus? How many people in Australia have to fall ill with corona before we are all required to self-isolate, by direct connection with at least 1 person with the disease?
Social distancing is a concept that operates in anticipation of any member of the general public potentially carrying coronavirus. Yes rugby league tackling is the total opposite of social distancing, but that is only on the assumption that you do not know whether or not your opponent has coronavirus. So isolate all footballers, test all footballers, remove anyone who tests positive, then go on with the competition in an isolated manner.
Now if that is an unreasonable request to make of the footballers, so be it, cancel the season. If the footballers refuse, same as any staff member who might refuse to work from home under direction of their management, then so be it, do not work and do not expect pay.
I keep thinking of the schools, how they remain open when children are the worst social distancers and most non-compliant cohort in society. How many children kissed and hugged their parents this morning, toddled off to school to play tips, cough and splutter over each other, share the bubblers, swap food, rub their eyes and their noses, then return home to their parents with the motherload of germs, to go at it again tomorrow? If 1 child at school tests positive to coronavirus, do we then isolate 100% of children and their teachers? What about the families and associates of the children and teachers?
This isn't an attack on anyone by the way, I just do not see consistency with the "pressure" on sporting codes to shut down, with that same pressure not currently being applied to business or schools. If I refuse to go to work or send kids to school, that is my own business with its own consequences. If the government forces my place of business to shut, that's not my fault but I would comply - of course, expecting that the rationale is sound and the same rule is applied to all similar businesses.
The other thing I was thinking about in relation to V'landys yesterday reaching out for government support during this time, which is a reasonable thing to do, and it's his job to look out for the code. Some people weren't fans of such a request. And I was thinking of the times the government has bailed institutions out - propping up the Holden factories, underwriting the banks during the GFC, bailing out Alcoa Aluminium in 2017.
Shutting down the schools would be massive, and an absolute last resort. Who would look after all the children? Parents - how then do they earn money to support their family, and who then does the job that they were trained to do? How many health workers would we then lose to child minding duties. Grandparents could look up the kids, but with kids being as you said a high chance to be carriers, and grandparents in a high risk category, that would be a disaster resulting in more deaths.
Im sure there will come a time when they have no choice but to close down some schools, maybe all schools, for a time, and I shudder to think the state of affairs that will lead to. I'd think that would be a last step, before the whole country goes into isolation.