Covid 19 and Group Cycling

Macy0161

beauf wrote: »

Personally I think it was the opening of retail that started it, as many were nuts.I did a U turn on a couple of show that looked mad. Then everyone brought it home. As you say many people not respecting personal space at all.

Food was all we/ I did, and it was actually while still in "essential" only that it felt too many in one of the supermarkets, one that would consider itself a premium one too!

Hard to think that some of the shops that had overnight queues and shopping centre's didn't contribute. The problem is, for everything, while contact tracing is only 48 hours we genuinely don't really know the cause in this State, so have to rely on evidence from countries that do a full contact trace to source. Various sectors quoting "no evidence here" are right, but for the wrong reasons - not because there wasn't spreading events, just it wasn't traced back to them and put down as "community transmission".

CramCycle

I'll be honest, there were one or two races having prize giving's earlier in the year. I was really impressed with how Mondello was run, but races having podiums after was beyond stupid. Ignorance in the extreme.

eeeee

I raced a good bit on track this year, and no one I raced with was a close contact, nor was I contacted as being a close contact.
I didn't witness any prizegivings, that's beyond crazy.
I am surprised at the lack of cases both in thread and irl from cycling. I thought there would be more. So much more in other spaces/activities. A good few cases in GAA/rugby adn football for example, despite them being played outdoors.I suppose there were cases in the Giro this year too, but I don;t remember any at any national events, that came out anyway.

I do think the UK and SA variants will change that a lot though.

Mercian Pro

Macy0161 wrote: »

The problem is, for everything, while contact tracing is only 48 hours we genuinely don't really know the cause in this State, so have to rely on evidence from countries that do a full contact trace to source. Various sectors quoting "no evidence here" are right, but for the wrong reasons - not because there wasn't spreading events, just it wasn't traced back to them and put down as "community transmission".

Despite the lack of routine contact trace to source, I suspect experienced contact tracers have a pretty good idea at this stage of what constitutes a high, medium or low risk activity. Hopefully this knowledge, as well as international studies, is feeding in to the decision making process when restrictions are being considered.

On the question of how much cyclist to cyclist transmission has occurred during club spins, most of these spins should have been logged with CI and presumably they should be aware of any cases where contacts had to be identified following a spin with a Covid positive rider.

JohnnyKq

eeeee wrote: »

A good few cases in GAA/rugby adn football for example, despite them being played outdoors.

Could the transmission be in the changing rooms and not on the pitch?

eeeee

JohnnyKq wrote: »

Could the transmission be in the changing rooms and not on the pitch?

Never thought of that, makes a lot of sense though. I assumed they came in their kit.
I don't know a lot of about football or rugby

harringtonp

eeeee wrote: »

Never thought of that, makes a lot of sense though. I assumed they came in their kit.
I don't know a lot of about football or rugby

The pitch itself is the last place to look. There was one case in the west related to team minibus hire

cyclocross!

JohnnyKq wrote: »

Could the transmission be in the changing rooms and not on the pitch?

I think a lot of it was actually lads and lassies giving each lifts to matches/training in cars. Most changing rooms were closed.

CramCycle

eeeee wrote: »

I didn't witness any prizegivings, that's beyond crazy.

The Starsky league had one every week, really surprised at it, published on FB and everything.

cyclocross! wrote: »

I think a lot of it was actually lads and lassies giving each lifts to matches/training in cars. Most changing rooms were closed.

They were all closed AFAIK but you are right, I think it was even cited as a possible issue early on in the year.

Macy0161

Mercian Pro wrote: »

On the question of how much cyclist to cyclist transmission has occurred during club spins, most of these spins should have been logged with CI and presumably they should be aware of any cases where contacts had to be identified following a spin with a Covid positive rider.

My understanding is not necessarily. Someone could have it on a Sunday spin but be asymptomatic at that point, develop symptoms/ tested on say the Thursday, confirmed on the Friday. My understanding they wouldn't even go back to the Sunday spin in terms of contacts.

harringtonp

Macy0161 wrote: »

My understanding is not necessarily. Someone could have it on a Sunday spin but be asymptomatic at that point, develop symptoms/ tested on say the Thursday, confirmed on the Friday. My understanding they wouldn't even go back to the Sunday spin in terms of contacts.

This is a very real scenario which is likely to have happened. In our situation if the case had not considered the cycling group as close contacts (and therefore didn't mention it to the tracer) or we hadn't stopped indoors for coffee this thread wouldn't be running.

Mercian Pro

As a matter of interest harringtonp, did the cyclist who had Covid pass on the close contact details or was the club or CI involved in providing phone numbers etc?

harringtonp

Mercian Pro wrote: »

As a matter of interest harringtonp, did the cyclist who had Covid pass on the close contact details or was the club or CI involved in providing phone numbers etc?

As far as I know the cyclist. He had my number and may have had the other close contacts number too. If he didn't he got it from another club member. CI weren't in the loop as far as I know. It all happened very quick, there was only a few hours between him getting a positive result and close contacts being called. The delay was in the tests, 5 days wait for me

Eamonnator

Tenzor07 wrote: »

Off you go: https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2058096454

Jaysus, that was some rabbit hole you sent me down, I've only just escaped.

Eamonnator

harringtonp wrote: »

As far as I know the cyclist. He had my number and may have had the other close contacts number too. If he didn't he got it from another club member. CI weren't in the loop as far as I know. It all happened very quick, there was only a few hours between him getting a positive result and close contacts being called. The delay was in the tests, 5 days wait for me

are you or any of your contacts on the Covid Tracker app.? if so, were any of you notified by them?

AndrewJRenko

Macy0161 wrote: »

I wouldn't say there will be any desire to make it mandatory. I would suggest it's more likely to be the opposite - as we've seen in Lockdown 2 versus March, with the number of "essential" office based workers multiplying. I guess it remains to be seen this time.

The reality is that most organisations will be tied to leases, so there will be no issue with those that want to be 100% office based.

I can only talk for my own organisation, and there has been no ill effects of process improvement since being remote. I don't think there's evidence either way as to the long term effects on things like that? Particularly in the context of those that have grown up with social media and online communications.

That's part of the problem though, it IS mandatory today. My office is open, heated, lit, with a very small skeleton staff attending, but I can't work from there, and same for the minority of people who have serious difficulty meeting the demands of WFH, whether that is space or security or heating or whatever.

I'm not sure that the long term impacts of the loss of water-cooler conversations is measurable, but I do suspect that it has to be a real issue. For me, that's where most of the workplace relationships emerge, and those relationships are the ones that stand to you when you get into difficult situations with colleagues down the line.

a148pro

Macy0161 wrote: »

My understanding is not necessarily. Someone could have it on a Sunday spin but be asymptomatic at that point, develop symptoms/ tested on say the Thursday, confirmed on the Friday. My understanding they wouldn't even go back to the Sunday spin in terms of contacts.

I know from recent experience that they were only interested in the close contacts of an asymptomatic case from the day before they tested positive. This was even where it was likely that the case had the virus the day before (as a flatmate tested positive the day before him).

a148pro

Eamonnator wrote: »

are you or any of your contacts on the Covid Tracker app.? if so, were any of you notified by them?

I got a notification recently. I was impressed with the app in some senses, a little let down in others.

The app worked quite well in the sense that I was sitting slightly closer to the case than others who did not get a notification (I was able to identify the case as it was a work environment). They were maybe another two meters further away for more or less the same amount of time. So it is sensitive and differentiates between distances.

However, I was not within two meters of him for 15 minutes, for sure. More likely 4 meters away on and off for around an hour. Though that may interest the app as much as 15 minutes of closer contact.

What annoyed me was first of all I got no alert from the app until I opened it after I heard from other people in the room that they had got alerts. I'm pretty sure the app was running so it was either a coincidence that about a minute after I opened it I got the alert or the app wouldn't have alerted me unless I opened it. I think from looking at it there's actually a log where it checks a few times a day but I was unnerved by the prospect (if it be a prospect) that you might have to open the app to ensure you don't have any close contact. Since then I've been opening the app regularly just in case.

The other annoying thing is that the app deemed me a close contact where I would not have been so deemed ordinarily. It just worked on distance or whatever its threshold was. It didn't factor in the fact we were wearing masks for instance, and ultimately, as per the above post, the case was told that only people he had been close to the day before he tested positive were close contacts. I was the day before that again. I rang the HSE and they confirmed this.

I ended up doing 12 of the 14 days restricted movements anyway and getting two private tests (both negative) to be sure to be sure. But it was a little annoying to be made a close contact by the app when contact tracers themselves didn't deem me one as it is obviously very disruptive.

Interesting experience nonetheless.

Macy0161

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

That's part of the problem though, it IS mandatory today. My office is open, heated, lit, with a very small skeleton staff attending, but I can't work from there, and same for the minority of people who have serious difficulty meeting the demands of WFH, whether that is space or security or heating or whatever.

It is today, because of a rampant virus, which I assume you've noticed in the news! Thousands already laid off as their sectors close, thousands more from tomorrow...

I was talking about once the pandemic is over. Blended should be an option for all that can effectively do it (which thousands have shown they can), but I don't foresee anyone being forced to do so. As I said, organisations will be tied to leases, if nothing else so why would they force anyone, in normal non-global pandemic circumstances?

harringtonp

There is a large cost in terms of inconvenience once you are deemed a close contact. In practice there was very little circumstantial difference on the day between me being across the table but not facing towards the case and the 4 guys at the other table.

They continued life as normal with some of them cycling in company Xmas week. I got 2 texts a day from the HSE reminding me of obligations and a 6 days wait before getting a negative result. This had a major impact on Xmas and a knock on affect on other family members.

You may not agree with but can understand why people would reject the notion of being a close contact... Particularly if they don't believe they were themselves and are completely asymptomatic. A quick test turnaround would make a huge difference.