"Italy Re-Closes Cinemas Amid Coronavirus Surge"

[Geoff Jones]

I suspect that where we differ I'm not convinced that governments can provide the solution, because if they try to do so in the form of rules and regulations, the governed will only put up with that for so long before the law of diminishing returns kicks in.

Jacinda Ardern would differ with you on this as well.

One of the commenters at the bottom noted that no-one has ever argued for shutting the economy down in response to the first two (cancer and road accidents).

This is a false equivalency for 3 reasons. 1. No one has argued for "shutting the economy down." 2. New legislation has been passed regularly for decades to reduce the number of cancer and automobile deaths. (In 1923, 21.65 people died from automobile deaths per 100,000,000 vehicle miles. In 2018, that number was down to 1.22. Source) 3. Anyone can take multiple steps to significantly reduce their personal risk of dying from cancer and automobile deaths. With Covid 19, an individual can only do so much to reduce their risk and still function in society. Because of the nature of this disease and our communal society, we are dependent upon those around us taking steps as well. The "minority who couldn't care less and deliberately do risky activity" are the problem, and not enough is being done about them.

I'm glad to hear you are taking steps to reduce your risk and the risk of those around you.

[Leo Enticknap]

Agreed completely, and I'm sorry that you've been personally affected by this.

I suspect that where we differ is that I'm not convinced that governments can provide the solution, because if they try to do so in the form of rules and regulations, the governed will only put up with that for so long before the law of diminishing returns kicks in. Even in the final years of World War II (he wrote, invoking Godwin's Law...), there are numerous accounts of both British and German civilians defying air raid blackout regulations, obtaining rationed food illegally, listening to pirate broadcasts, and in the case of Britain, even electing communist MPs at by-elections as a form of protest. After five years of it, everyone had had enough. Returning to the topic, one of my relatives in the UK was recently telling me about plans being made to drive through back roads in the middle of the night to visit family members at Christmas if "total lockdown" is reintroduced.

When their life could be at stake, people as a general rule are not stupid, and evaluate risks relative to other risks. I try to do one large supermarket shop a week rather than multiple visits, to minimize unnecessary contact. I wear a mask on service calls, use hand sanitizer wherever I find it, etc. etc. I recently decided to drive rather than fly to an out-of-town job in northern Nevada (492 miles in each direction), to avoid coming into close proximity with hundreds of strangers during the journey. I am conscious of the fact that I visit my in-laws (in their 80s) each weekend, and take my temperature immediately before each of these visits. Of course, there are a minority who couldn't care less and deliberately do risky activity, but if you govern to the lowest common denominator, the collateral damage that causes will make the cure worse than the disease. We could set the freeway speed limit at 20mph and enforce it ruthlessly, but we don't, and there are good reasons why we don't.

My local paper's website's lead story yesterday was that C19 is now the third leading cause of (unnatural) death in Riverside County. One of the commenters at the bottom noted that no-one has ever argued for shutting the economy down in response to the first two (cancer and road accidents).

[Marcel Birgelen]

A problem, of course, is the risk of those at lower risk infecting those at higher risk, hence politicians urging us to vote by mail and cancel family gatherings at Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. But again as you point out, lockdown novelty has been replaced by lockdown fatigue, with public responses ranging from simply ignoring the diktats to significant civil unrest, as we have seen in several European cities, and here in Philadelphia, in the last few nights. Added to that is the economic damage and loss of employment, and all the mental health problems that flow from those. Bringing this back to topic, I can't help but wonder if public leisure activities that the statistics have shown to be relatively low risk, of which cinemas are a prime example (as Steve Guttag has pointed out numerous times, there has not been a single, even alleged, incident, of mass C19 transmission linked to a movie theater), were allowed to reopen properly, then that would alleviate the latter at very little cost in terms of C19 transmission risk.
.

I personally know about 6 people that have died from COVID-19, or at least, COVID-19 played a big part in it, or let it put that way: If there was no COVID-19, chances are very high, they would still be around and for the foreseeable future. I doubt they would've died from this year's flu, at least not all six of them. Four of them also were in pretty good health, one of them was in his 40s and didn't have any complications I knew of.

This whole virus is yet one big mystery. I've spoken to some healthcare professionals in my family. One thing that came up was that while we've learned quite a lot in the last few months and our methods at treating infections have become better, this still doesn't explain the much lower death rate observed during the "summer months" compared to the earlier months. One of the theories is that there are multiple strains, and some may me far more deadly than the other, but chances of them popping up and spreading increase, once the virus starts to pop-up again.

I can understand that people are getting tired of the constant string of corona news and the constant strings of restrictions, people don't like to be "imprisoned", but what happened in Italy, Spain and New York is real and Belgium is currently on the edge of having the same happening to it. I know this, because it's just around the corner and many of my colleagues and friends live and work there. Yesterday, the government even decided to allow already infected health-care workers to continue to work with COVID-19 patients, as long as they're capable to do so, because they're simply at the end of their resources...

So, again, this isn't any normal seasonal flu. Even if the majority of those hit are "old folks", who are we to judge their life to be less important than that of those less affected? Keep in mind that the risk groups in our western nations are considerable. We're all very grey nations, many of us are obese and many of us suffer from some form of chronic illness like diabetes, many of us have had some form of cancer in their past. We may be way more vulnerable than we think we are.

And always keep in mind: Dying is only the worst outcome, we still know very little about the long-term effects of this thing, other than that many people who've had it, still have problems in all kind of severity ranges even months after officially being healed from the infection itself.

We really should try to set politics aside for a few months. Use our collective minds to try to solve this in a far more unanimous way. Nobody knows how this will end, but those kind of events can be large turning points in history. We need to find a solution to save both our humanity and economy...

[Bob Ezra]

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/c...ekly/index.htm

[Carsten Kurz]

few people comparing Covid-19 and 'the flu' take into account the full spectrum of flu variations, and especially the fact that there are known medications/treatments and vaccines against 'the flu', but none against Covid-19 yet. We have 100 years of experience with influenza, but not a single year of experience and research about Covid-19.

[Leo Enticknap]

Maybe that serves as a reminder for all those who still claim this thing is just as harmless as the seasonal flu: It isn't.

The statistics here in the USA at any rate seem to suggest that it almost certainly is* if you are under 60 (the mean average age at death for all recorded C19 fatalities in the USA was 82, the last time I looked) and do not have one or more of the pre-existing conditions that have been identified as increasing the likelihood of C19 causing severe illness or death if you get it: obesity (appears to be the biggest risk), a compromised respiratory system (e.g. from smoking), and/or cardiovascular issues.

A problem, of course, is the risk of those at lower risk infecting those at higher risk, hence politicians urging us to vote by mail and cancel family gatherings at Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. But again as you point out, lockdown novelty has been replaced by lockdown fatigue, with public responses ranging from simply ignoring the diktats to significant civil unrest, as we have seen in several European cities, and here in Philadelphia, in the last few nights. Added to that is the economic damage and loss of employment, and all the mental health problems that flow from those. Bringing this back to topic, I can't help but wonder if public leisure activities that the statistics have shown to be relatively low risk, of which cinemas are a prime example (as Steve Guttag has pointed out numerous times, there has not been a single, even alleged, incident, of mass C19 transmission linked to a movie theater), were allowed to reopen properly, then that would alleviate the latter at very little cost in terms of C19 transmission risk.

* There are isolated exceptions to every general rule. When I was a teenager, a well-known BBC TV weather presenter in her 20s contracted, and shortly afterwards died of, Guillain-Barré Syndrome. This made the headlines for a few days, largely because she was a public figure and it was an unknown disease that almost no-one who hadn't had it and wasn't an MD had heard of. About a month later, I got it myself. Needless to say, I thought I was a gonner. In fact, I was out of hospital (and obviously, not in a plastic bag) within a month. The fatality rate is about 2%, and as with C19, almost all GBS fatalities are either close to their natural life expectancy, had serious pre-existing conditions when they caught it, or both. The weather girl wasn't and didn't, which was part of what made her death a news story. By the same token, the media occasionally publishes sensational pieces about the football coach aged 27, with no known underlying conditions, who contracted C19 and was dead within days. While tragic, this is so rare that such stories are, IMHO, very unhelpful and only fuel hysteria.

[Marcel Birgelen]

As of this week, the majority of the European exhibition market has been closed. I'm afraid this only decreases the willingness of the studios to release new prime content to the international market.

A short summary of the situation in a few European countries:

Germany: Closing this week
UK: Technically still open, with limitations, but some chains have either closed entirely or are operating a handful of locations on an absolute minimum schedule. Many independents also seem to be closed.
France: Closed since this week
Italy: Closed since this week
Spain: Still open, but with limitations and need to close at 11pm.
Poland: Still open, but with limitations.
Netherlands: Still open, but with severe limitations.
Belgium: Closed as of today

Like Carsten indicated: The summer looked pretty good overall in most European countries, especially Tenet did pretty well in many markets. While there were some local COVID-19 spikes, most European countries managed to keep their case numbers under control. Also, like Carsten indicated, the current outbreaks, which rival or are even worse than those back in March and April, are probably a result of multiple factors. I've witnessed a form progressive laxity towards many of the imposed measures. While most people initially observed isolation rules and limited their exposure to other people, once the rules became less strict, many people, unfortunately, started to act more irresponsibly. Combine this with colder weather and more in-door activities and the virus has again, room to spread. Given the high R0 of this virus and the long incubation time, it's hard to see it coming and it always takes about two weeks to see if your measures do anything to mitigate the situation.

Right now, the situation in Belgium is pretty dire. This week, the first patients died there, because there was no ventilator available for them and the patients didn't survive the transfer to a hospital with sufficient capacity. With current case-numbers, it's expected their health-care system will be in "Limbo status" at Nov. 6, they're now asking for international support. Maybe that serves as a reminder for all those who still claim this thing is just as harmless as the seasonal flu: It isn't. This isn't made-up news, once your healthcare system is at capacity, people will die and from what I've heard, the way most go, isn't pretty... So, please, keep you and your loved ones safe.

So, if I look at the whole situation right now, maybe it's better to close down those cinemas all together. Not because cinemas aren't safe, but with the current rules in place, business would be abysmal anyway. When it comes down to support from the government, there at least can't be no discussion about your eligibility for such support: you have been mandated to close. Now it's up to the governments to step-up their game, our future is literally in their hands...

[Harold Hallikainen]

Yes, time is great for ham radio. Just got off the air. Also learning ice skating!

Harold
https://w6iwi.org/

[Carsten Kurz]

Hi Harold,

no, we have been open every day since the end of may, and we have never been requested the contact forms we collected for each show - they all went through the shredder unread 4 weeks after each show. We know this is the same for all german cinemas. They now say they can only trace infections to around 25% - for around 75% of all positives, they don't know where/how the infection happened. That's why they now try to break the wave by closing even those businesses where so far no increased risk is known.

We had been down to really low infection rates throughout the summer.
I remember when during my ISDCF live tour someone from the US (?) asked me how many infections we had per day, and I was embarrassed to answer 'per day I don't know, 17 total currently'. However, since a few weeks, they are going through the roof again. The weather and/or changed behaviour of people with the weather change must play a dominant role here. Also, younger crowds have not been very cautious over the summer. Unlike around the beginning, where only local outbreaks were seen, it creeped into the broad population slowly over summer, and now with the changed conditons - more indoor activities, lower temperatures, whatever, the new outbreak is wide.

We do have the smartphone Corona tracing app since mid-June in germany. Yes, it is based on a common API that exists for both iOS and Android. Unfortunately, so far it seems it has not proven too successful over here. However, it was released when infection rates over here were already quite low and you had to be quite 'lucky' to actually meet a person with a positive testing. It may be that with the increasing attention AND increasing infection rates, that it will become more useful now. They say, of around 80 million people here in germany, there were 20 million downloads of it. Not sure how many people actually use it effectively.

@Jim - TakeAway is still permitted (not outside dining). Many smaller consumer businesses are still allowed to operate, production, factories, etc. all remain running.
Basically, they are closing down what they call 'non-essential' businesses. Schools and Play Schools will remain open.

While I am depressed, I think it's the right decision currently. Most european countries are about to do the same.
Luckily, the overall economical situation of our own cinema is good. But as Marcel puts it, this is all very bad for our industry.

We had decent crowds over the summer. Up to 130 people are allowed in our huge auditorium (and that is with distance keeping), and we sold out a couple of times (Tenet ran much better here than in the US). As one can imagine, with the news about increasing infection rates, attendance went down considerably over the last two weeks. So, even without the ordered closing, business would be really bad by now anyway.


So. Harold - I think times could hardly be better for a ham radio career, no?

[Harold Hallikainen]

Carsten,

I really enjoyed the cinema tour you did for ISDCF a while back. Since the cinemas there are collecting contact tracing information on all patrons for possible review by public health officials, have they ever requested the info?

Also, here in Colorado, there are now iOS and Android applications that do exposure notification. It is included in the latest iOS update and is an application that needs to be downloaded for Android. Both ask for your approval before running. I believe it's based on random number beacons sent out by Bluetooth. If you test positive, I think you tell the application. It then notifies everyone who has picked up that beacon. Supposedly privacy is pretty well protected. The Colorado version has over 50k downloads. It's only been available for a few days. It will be interesting to see what it turns up.

Harold
http://hallikainen.org/cv/

[Jim Cassedy]

Sorry to hear that Carsten. That's not good news! Are the restaurants completely shutting down, or will they still be permitted to do take-out and/or "outside dining" as many are doing here in San Francisco & other US cities?

EDIT: Right after posting the comment above, a friend texted me this news clip. I do not know the source:
> As expected, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has ordered the closing of all cinemas in the country as part of sweeping lockdown measures designed to stem an alarming rise in the country’s COVID infection rate. The CEO of Germany’s primary cinema organization HDF Kino today said she was “stunned” by the move and warned theaters could be “driven to ruin.”<

[Carsten Kurz]

In germany, all cinemas nationwide will have to close again for a projected month from coming monday, nov. 2nd. Also restaurants, bars, theatres, gyms, etc.

- Carsten

[Mike Blakesley]

Has anyone heard or experienced anything from New York's reopening last weekend? I know there are still no big movies, but at least some places are open.

I agree about the exhibition lobby not having enough influence, but I think it 's mostly just because we're a smaller industry than bars, restaurants and the like. You should hear the reports on those weekly NATO calls. Those guys/gals are working the phones, writing letters, taking meetings, anything they can. Last week they reported having meetings with Pelosi, Schumer, Cuomo's team (but not himself) and various other New York officials. They've also organized the CinemaSafe program which we've talked about here, and generated several million letters from moviegoers and celebrities to Cuomo's office. Somebody also had the idea to "flood the capitol with popcorn" and got cinemas all over the country to send packages of popcorn to Albany. (There is speculation that the popcorn event is what finally led Cuomo to open at least part of the state.) They are also meeting and talking regularly with studio heads, marketing people and such. All while conducting a "dues free" year. I have to say they appear to be doing everything possible to help the cause.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Right now, the entirety of Europe seems to go back into a light-version of another lockdown. While measures seem to be somewhat more controlled than last time, there is little to no real regard for the exhibition industry. I'm afraid that their lobby simply isn't strong enough to really make a difference. Those blanketed decisions will see many theaters around the globe close for a significant amount of time for a second time this year. While many restaurants and bars have enjoyed a pretty decent summer around here and were able to make up some lost ground, despite capacity restrictions, movie theaters were almost completely devoid from attractive content.

Although governments are struggling to get some compensatory measures in place for affected businesses, I'm afraid it won't be sufficient to fill the gap for many of them. While I'm sure the exhibition industry will somehow survive, I'm afraid the scars of all of this will be visible for the decade to come...

[Steve Guttag]

You know what numbers are not peaking? Cases traced to any cinema anywhere in the world.