This is an open discussion - we want to hear from you!
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This is an open discussion - we want to hear from you!
As mentioned in my opening remarks it is likely that COVID will be with us for some time to come. We will have to make adjustments to take this into consideration while we continue to move forward. We are in a much better situation than we were in March of 2020. There are vaccines. The disease is not an unknown as it was then. Online chess has exploded due to the pandemic in part and due to the cultural phenomenon of the Netflix show "Queen's Gambit". There are opportunities because there are many more players aware of and playing chess. If we can tap into just a small percentage of these new people we could experience a great growth spurt in tournament chess. We will need to do it safely.
I would like to see us, slowly and carefully, start to hold regular rated events. Covid will eventually disappear or it may morph into a seasonal flu type of disease. People will continue to die, in most cases unnecessarily but likely not so much in Canada.
I don't see us returning to full scale FIDE events this year. Even people with full vaccinations are catching the new variants though they are in most cases experiencing symptoms akin to a very short cold or bout of the flu. For people who are not immunized the consequences can be more dire particularly in cases where there are other underlying conditions. There are many countries where almost nobody is vaccinated. A FIDE olympiad would likely be a super spreader event at this time.
If we had to support an olympiad team right now, with very little in the way of rating fees and very much reduced membership fees we could quickly experience a financial crunch which would necessitate dipping into the foundation funds. We have not had to do that so far because things were so good financially just before the pandemic.
I expect that there will be some over the board play starting in the next few weeks and gradually spreading out across Canada. This will ease the possible future crunch. We will have to plan as if Covid will be with us for a long time.
I am happy to say that over the board chess started again in Alberta in July. The AB government lifted all restrictions. The Edmonton Chess Club and the Calgary Chess Club both started operating. Masks were required at the CCC until the end of July. We have held the AB Closed at the CCC and this weekend we have 34 players registered for the Over/Under 1800 tournament. The Alberta Chess Association is currently trying to draft a Covid-19 Policy to draft. Currently there is much debate as to what should be recommended vs enforced. At the least it will contain a waiver, but the last proposal had close to 3 pages of suggested and mandatory obligations for the organizer and TD. Needless to say, there is much debate going on now. Personally, I am of the opinion that the policies should be up to mostly the organizer abiding of course to the provincial government policies.
I have mentioned this elsewhere in these meeting threads but being vaccinated does not necessarily protect you from getting and spreading the virus. People who are vaccinated are getting the virus including one of my family members. She did go to Alberta recently and it is unclear where she got it. Dogs and cats apparently can be a reservoir of the virus so we are probably stuck with it for a while. As a result, we should cautiously move into rated online play.
Many of the people who have a very bad reaction to COVID have a vitamin D deficiency so some medical authorities are suggesting relatively large doses of Vitamin D3 with meals along with Zinc.
The new variants are much more transmissible but also tend to be less deadly though those with underlying conditions should be very cautious.
I would like to hear the experience and practises by other organizer dealing with covid measures when organizing events and club meetings. Thnx