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NEWS: Seattle's Sakura-Con 2021 Canceled


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invalidname
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Joined: 11 Aug 2004
Posts: 2434
Location: Grand Rapids, MI
PostPosted: Sun Jan 24, 2021 6:11 am Reply with quote
And here we go, as the 2021 convention year falls apart because the US has done such a poor job fighting COVID-19.

I have hotels reserved for Anime Central (May) and Otakon (August), but I seriously doubt either event will take place. Maybe Anime Weekend Atlanta in October.

One big tell: notice that almost none of the big cons have announced any JP guests yet. At this point, it’s not clear that international travel will even be possible later this year, nor that any JP guests would want to travel to the virus vat that is the USA.

Now that Sakura-con is the first big convention to lose two consecutive annual events to COVID-19, I do kind of wonder if these cons are going to start crowdfunding campaigns to pay their bills and keep their LLCs intact during this period when they can’t actually run the cons. I’d certainly be willing to help.
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Яeverse



Joined: 16 Jun 2014
Posts: 1135
Location: Indianapolis
PostPosted: Sun Jan 24, 2021 8:02 am Reply with quote
August cons might happen if we truly do get 100mln vaccinated in 100 days.
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getumbuck



Joined: 15 Feb 2008
Posts: 197
PostPosted: Sun Jan 24, 2021 8:32 am Reply with quote
Яeverse wrote:
August cons might happen if we truly do get 100mln vaccinated in 100 days.


That's a hope and a dream, so long as we have ani-vaxxers. I have quite a few in my life, such as a co worker, my best friend and my aunt. I just hope I'm able to get mine relatively soon at this point.
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invalidname
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Joined: 11 Aug 2004
Posts: 2434
Location: Grand Rapids, MI
PostPosted: Sun Jan 24, 2021 9:29 am Reply with quote
Яeverse wrote:
August cons might happen if we truly do get 100mln vaccinated in 100 days.

That’s less than a third of the US population… I had read we need 60-70% coverage for herd immunity to kick in and really stop the virus from spreading. Plus, the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines need two doses. At the current rate of 1 million doses/day, and needing 600 million doses (300 million people x 2 doses) to get sufficient coverage, that works out to like a year and half.
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Jose Cruz



Joined: 20 Nov 2012
Posts: 1767
Location: South America
PostPosted: Sun Jan 24, 2021 10:12 am Reply with quote
invalidname wrote:
Яeverse wrote:
August cons might happen if we truly do get 100mln vaccinated in 100 days.

That’s less than a third of the US population… I had read we need 60-70% coverage for herd immunity to kick in and really stop the virus from spreading. Plus, the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines need two doses. At the current rate of 1 million doses/day, and needing 600 million doses (300 million people x 2 doses) to get sufficient coverage, that works out to like a year and half.


You don't really need to vaccinate everyone, as 97% of deaths are among people over 60, just vaccinate those, who are 20% of the population, and you reduce Covid mortality to flu-like levels.

Also, lots of people acquired natural immunity already, given that on average 150 people acquire natural immunity for each covid death, the US already has 65 million people who are immune. In less than 100 days the US will have 650k covid deaths so 100 million people should be naturally immune.

So, natural immunity + shoots on people over 60 should mostly stop the pandemic, then a few tens of millions of people under 60 vaccinated should achieve full herd immunity and stamp out the virus. US is vacinnating over 1 million people a day already, in 100 days there will be 200 million shoots given.

Overall, it appears that in 100 days (so, by early may) the pandemic will be basically over.
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azabaro
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Joined: 06 Jul 2007
Posts: 251
PostPosted: Sun Jan 24, 2021 11:34 am Reply with quote
Jose Cruz wrote:

You don't really need to vaccinate everyone, as 97% of deaths are among people over 60, just vaccinate those, who are 20% of the population, and you reduce Covid mortality to flu-like levels.

Also, lots of people acquired natural immunity already, given that on average 150 people acquire natural immunity for each covid death, the US already has 65 million people who are immune. In less than 100 days the US will have 650k covid deaths so 100 million people should be naturally immune.

So, natural immunity + shoots on people over 60 should mostly stop the pandemic, then a few tens of millions of people under 60 vaccinated should achieve full herd immunity and stamp out the virus. US is vacinnating over 1 million people a day already, in 100 days there will be 200 million shoots given.

Overall, it appears that in 100 days (so, by early may) the pandemic will be basically over.


COVID-19 absolutely does not have a flu-like mortality rate for people under 60. More importantly, you assume that the only significant effect is death - that if you get it, you either die or end up fine. This isn't true at all: many people have suffered lasting effects, whether as mild as a loss of their senses of taste and smell, to severe issues with breathing 10+ months after infection (https://twitter.com/FilmCritHULK/status/1348927191174705152), or "heart problems, diabetes and chronic liver and kidney conditions" that will land about 1/3 of folks with severe COVID back in the hospital within 5 months, with about 1/8 ending up dead (https://news.yahoo.com/almost-third-recovered-covid-patients-180255388.html).

Incidentally, we have no idea how long immunity to COVID lasts, whether from prior infection or from vaccination. Going back to the flu - it's not like you catch it one year and never catch it again. There's even more uncertainty around the matter with new mutations showing up because nations didn't take controlling the disease seriously enough in the first place.

Your vaccination projections are also off: we are vaccination "almost 900,000 people" per day rather than over a million. Even if we do vaccinate at your overestimated rate, we don't know if the vaccine reduces transmission or merely mitigates infection in the vaccinated person (that is, it might make the vaccinated person much less likely to have a severe or even moderate infection, but they may still remain contagious enough to keep community transmission up).

Honestly, the one thing we as a species should have learned in the last year it's to not be pollyannish about the fight against COVID, because every optimistic projection has turned out wrong. Your timetable is just one more of those.
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getumbuck



Joined: 15 Feb 2008
Posts: 197
PostPosted: Sun Jan 24, 2021 11:34 am Reply with quote
Jose Cruz wrote:

Overall, it appears that in 100 days (so, by early may) the pandemic will be basically over.


I'll believe that when I see it. I say we'll be lucky if we have this thing beat by the start of 2022. Just about a week ago, we had the second highest deaths in one day, since this thing started.
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Jose Cruz



Joined: 20 Nov 2012
Posts: 1767
Location: South America
PostPosted: Sun Jan 24, 2021 12:38 pm Reply with quote
azabaro wrote:
COVID-19 absolutely does not have a flu-like mortality rate for people under 60.


Well, for people under 50 the CDC estimates mortality at about 1 out of 5000 infected, which is lower than the average mortality rate of the flu.

Quote:
More importantly, you assume that the only significant effect is death - that if you get it, you either die or end up fine. This isn't true at all: many people have suffered lasting effects, whether as mild as a loss of their senses of taste and smell, to severe issues with breathing 10+ months after infection (https://twitter.com/FilmCritHULK/status/1348927191174705152), or "heart problems, diabetes and chronic liver and kidney conditions" that will land about 1/3 of folks with severe COVID back in the hospital within 5 months, with about 1/8 ending up dead (https://news.yahoo.com/almost-third-recovered-covid-patients-180255388.html).


Severe consequences regarding Covid are closely correlated with risk of death. Younger healthy people have very reduced risks of developing these problems. I had Covid back in May, symptoms lasted 48 hours and it was more mild than a flu but stronger than a cold. That or no symptoms at all is the standard experience with Covid for 99.9% of healthy people under 60.

Quote:
Incidentally, we have no idea how long immunity to COVID lasts, whether from prior infection or from vaccination. Going back to the flu - it's not like you catch it one year and never catch it again. There's even more uncertainty around the matter with new mutations showing up because nations didn't take controlling the disease seriously enough in the first place.

Your vaccination projections are also off: we are vaccination "almost 900,000 people" per day rather than over a million. Even if we do vaccinate at your overestimated rate, we don't know if the vaccine reduces transmission or merely mitigates infection in the vaccinated person (that is, it might make the vaccinated person much less likely to have a severe or even moderate infection, but they may still remain contagious enough to keep community transmission up).

Honestly, the one thing we as a species should have learned in the last year it's to not be pollyannish about the fight against COVID, because every optimistic projection has turned out wrong. Your timetable is just one more of those.


US rate is at 1.06 million per day and increasingly rapidly: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-vaccine-tracker-global-distribution/

This pandemic is lasting this long because we didn't allow it to naturally go over it's course, which is the course of previous pandemics: it infects a large fraction of the population until herd immunity kicks in and then it burns out. In the US allowing the virus to spread would have resulted in over 2 million deaths from March to September 2020 as the medical system would collapse, and the pandemic would be over by September.

This level of mortality was unacceptable and instead the US and much of the world went into lockdown to delay the spread of the virus to give scientists time so a vaccine could be developed. Now that we have the vaccine we can achieve herd immunity and stamp out the virus without so many deaths. Thus ending the pandemic. The question is how fast we can roll it out. If things go as planned we should be able to reduce Covid mortality to levels of the flu over the next few months and stamp out the virus by the summer.

Now, it's true that new strains are a big issue since vaccines or natural immunity might not work against them. So far it appears that pfizer's and moderna vaccines are effective so I am optimistic about ending the pandemic soon.
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Greboruri



Joined: 09 Jul 2003
Posts: 373
Location: QBN, NSW, Australia
PostPosted: Sun Jan 24, 2021 7:10 pm Reply with quote
Jose Cruz wrote:
This pandemic is lasting this long because we didn't allow it to naturally go over it's course, which is the course of previous pandemics: it infects a large fraction of the population until herd immunity kicks in and then it burns out. In the US allowing the virus to spread would have resulted in over 2 million deaths from March to September 2020 as the medical system would collapse, and the pandemic would be over by September.

Jose, are you actually living in Brazil? Tell us how swimmingly things are going over there with the virus.
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HueyLion



Joined: 14 Feb 2014
Posts: 884
PostPosted: Sun Jan 24, 2021 7:40 pm Reply with quote
I do hope this is not the start of a lot of anime cons being cancelled...I can't wait until 2022 to thrive in a convention!
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getumbuck



Joined: 15 Feb 2008
Posts: 197
PostPosted: Sun Jan 24, 2021 8:33 pm Reply with quote
HueyLion wrote:
I do hope this is not the start of a lot of anime cons being cancelled...I can't wait until 2022 to thrive in a convention!


There's a good chance it will. We need mostly everyone vaccinated before it's safe again.
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Cryten



Joined: 19 Jan 2019
Posts: 979
PostPosted: Sun Jan 24, 2021 11:31 pm Reply with quote
It will likely take a year to restore reasonable international travel. A big part of controlling a virus is controlling its vectors. Which is why until you cut down on the highly transmissible population, IE those who are highly mobile or asymptomatic carriers, it is very hard to prevent new infections. Its gonna take a long while to get so many people vaccinated. I would consider it a major risk to go to large gatherings this year. Just look at the australian open. The stars complaining about quarantine followed by 10 people down with UK covid.
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enurtsol



Joined: 01 May 2007
Posts: 14746
PostPosted: Mon Jan 25, 2021 6:02 am Reply with quote
The most significant factor in pandemic control is not deaths - it's spread

As long as the virus keeps spreading, people and businesses would be reluctant to do business as usual because they don't want to be reknowned as a virus spreader - or worse, be held negligence accountable (legal and financial) for casualties of staff and customers. That's just how things go

Thus, as long as the virus keeps spreading, things will be put on limits, including conventions. Thing won't be back to normal until the spread is under control
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KabaKabaFruit



Joined: 20 Sep 2007
Posts: 1869
Location: Winnipeg, Manitoba
PostPosted: Mon Jan 25, 2021 11:42 am Reply with quote
I think Jose needs a good, hard look at the difference between arbitrary statistics and the reality of human behavior, especially in a day and age where people can be armchair experts just by watching mere YouTube videos.
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Aresef



Joined: 22 Jun 2005
Posts: 909
Location: MD
PostPosted: Mon Jan 25, 2021 12:25 pm Reply with quote
Here we go.

The other day I had a June con, Power Morphicon (which was already pushed from Labor Day weekend of last year), punt to 2022, equating to cancellation for what's typically a biennial event.

I think you're going to see more cons, especially the big ones like AX, SDCC, Ota have to make difficult decisions in the coming weeks and months. I miss cons, I miss my friends. But priority No. 1 is getting this virus behind us.
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