Wembley

I'm not sure what exactly they are supposed to be testing. It's not like if they have no cases from this it tells you anything because as we have seen throughout there have been gatherings that were fairly small infected a decent number and large gatherings where there were none or very few.

They should be starting small with people spread out well and then as more people get vaccinated, we learn more about the true effectiveness of the vaccines and clubs get much better in adapting how they operate and manage the people they can increase it bit by bit

 

That was my reaction. I also thought the idea was to spread everyone out and then gradualy reduce the social distancing as the trials continued.

The 8,000 attending were split 2,000 from each club and 4,000 made up of local residents/NHS staff.

The other thing that is being monitored is travelling to/from matches and the hospitality arrangements around grounds. So, even if 40,000 was OK inside a ground, it may not be outside the ground.


For this match, the 2,000 Manchester City fans were given a choice of:
1) 250 car spaces (presumably based on an average of two per car);
2) 750 coach spaces; and
3) 750 spaces on two chartered trains.

Fans had to live in a certain post code to qualify and have a PCR and a lateral flow test before the match and another PCR test after the match, to qualify.

I suppose after all that, grouping them close together, inside the ground, made little difference.

 

Seeing as the tests are not 100% accurate then too right. It's something we really should all just get used to and continue doing, the same with a certain amount of social distancing protocols because this isn't even the big pandemic that experts have been warning off and this has caused enough deaths and disruption, its the wake-up pandemic that we really need to learn the lessons from not just fall back into blissful ignorance

 

Except evidence shows they do help if you aren't using some knock off Chinese thing and wear it right. They don't stop it or anything else being transmitted but they reduce it, especially if both parties are wearing them.

And I mean just imagine we forget everything and go back to normal and then the big one that's been warned about that is as contagious if not more so than Covid and which has a really high mortality rate (As Covid's while higher than things like Flu isn't massively high, the number of deaths are just so high as so many people got it) and it could be devastating to the UK let alone the world. Little things like Masks, giving people more personal space rather than jamming everyone into places so they are almost on top of each other and people just being more aware and conscientious could make a massive difference and save millions of lives

 

Masks can be in excess of 99% effective against both catching and transmitting COVID-19. However, as you state @SimonW, they have to be the right mask, used the right way.

Nevertheless, I hope we can quickly get to a stage where masks are no longer required, at least outside of a medical environment. I'd certainly like us to reach that position by Spring 2022, if not by later this year.

I think there is likely to be some mask requirement, at matches this summer and probably into the early part of next season but, hopefully, next season will end more or less back to normal, by which time we will be seeing Wembley Stadium full again.

 

I assumed they would have designated seats, and that they would be ‘socially’ distanced from each other. Not in your designated seat and it’s Auf Wiedershen ! Order of the boot. Otherwise what is the point!

 

It was an experiment or trial depending on who is describing it. There's a similar forthcoming one planned as a clubbing event in Liverpool. It may be this weekend

The whole purpose is to loosen the lockdown rules so that people are deliberately in closer contact with each without social distancing and without masks (in Liverpool) and then to measure the infection rates after the event from easing these lockdown restrictions. Of course, the important aspect is that everybody who is part of the experiment has already had a negative RLF test result prior to the event! The success of the trial is therefore whether pre-testing provides a good outcome in infection levels.

If the trials work and it can be demonstrated that there is no rise in infection levels from the guinea pigs as they might be called, then it will help to ease the restrictions on certain types of largescale events such as festivals, theatres and sports events. Of course, that means that those attending these post-lockdown events will have to had met the original criterion, ie having had a negative RLF test beforehand.

I suspect that's where this is leading. If mass venues want to have lockdown restrictions eased, those attending will have to have proof of a recent negative RLF test or some other proof of 'immunity' such as a Covid vaccination. I'm sure Govie will let us all into his cunning plan shortly!

 

Not sure how they would decide who got the tickets. If it was fully random, then there wouldn’t have been some of the family groups, who seem to have got tickets for the last Spurs/Man City final at Wembley. Having missed out on some of City’s big games in the past, then I would have been very angry had ‘groups’ been given tickets, which suggests an ‘engineered’ process. Still not our issue given the current season.