Ready to play poker? Covid edition (1 Viewer)

liftapint

liftapint

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So, last spring, I moved out of Seattle, and into a rural area in the Cascade mountains. One of the main social avenues is the local Eagles club.

I host monthly poker night at the Eagles. I closed down my poker night last March, because most of the Eagles club members are prime candidates for covid -- men in their 70s who have been smokers all their lives. I wasn't going to host an event that killed half of the club's members! These guys have been HOUNDING me to get the games going again, because our state has relaxed restrictions. I have thus far refused, saying it is still too risky. They are all over me about this, pretty much thinks I'm being ridiculous. Honestly, I was thinking about getting it started again, as soon as I have 2 weeks post my second vaccine -- still risky, since many of these same guys are anti-vaccine, and pretty much thinks covid is no big deal/hoax.

Well, in today's news, there was an article about how there was a super-spreader event recently in our state. A different Eagles club hosted a poker and BBQ night, to try to recruit new members to the club. It resulted in about 100 covid cases just from that event!!! In this tiny little rural town, this was a very significant number!. Friggin' hell. I don't know when I'm going to have the guts to open poker night back up at our local club! The old dudes are getting restless for their poker! But I'll never forgive myself if any of those old fools die because of poker at the Eagles!

https://www.king5.com/article/news/...blic/293-5821f2e6-e272-4a79-b85e-25ff33946e58
 
liftapint said:
So, last spring, I moved out of Seattle, and into a rural area in the Cascade mountains. One of the main social avenues is the local Eagles club.

I host monthly poker night at the Eagles. I closed down my poker night last March, because most of the Eagles club members are prime candidates for covid -- men in their 70s who have been smokers all their lives. I wasn't going to host an event that killed half of the club's members! These guys have been HOUNDING me to get the games going again, because our state has relaxed restrictions. I have thus far refused, saying it is still too risky. They are all over me about this, pretty much thinks I'm being ridiculous. Honestly, I was thinking about getting it started again, as soon as I have 2 weeks post my second vaccine -- still risky, since many of these same guys are anti-vaccine, and pretty much thinks covid is no big deal/hoax.

Well, in today's news, there was an article about how there was a super-spreader event recently in our state. A different Eagles club hosted a poker and BBQ night, to try to recruit new members to the club. It resulted in about 100 covid cases just from that event!!! In this tiny little rural town, this was a very significant number!. Friggin' hell. I don't know when I'm going to have the guts to open poker night back up at our local club! The old dudes are getting restless for their poker! But I'll never forgive myself if any of those old fools die because of poker at the Eagles!

https://www.king5.com/article/news/...blic/293-5821f2e6-e272-4a79-b85e-25ff33946e58
Click to expand...
Tough call. It seems like it isn’t a small 10 person poker game but a much bigger event.

Honestly. For a smaller event, it should be up to the individual On whether they should be vaccinated. I have spoken personally to older people who have said adamantly that they would socialize and take the risk of dying over staying in and locked down, because the social aspects of their lives was so important for their mental health.

I wonder if this is the same feeling among some of your players. If you are vaccinated and really want to play, you are protected. The players know the risk.
 
I have slowly been doing games with limited capacity, no food service, self-screening players. I went completely dark in November when holiday gatherings got banned in Minnesota. I started up again in March.

Now that Minnesota is more than 50% vaccinated, and I will be through my my second in less than two weeks, I will probably open things up closer to normal. It takes some perseverance to get an appointment, but it can be done and I think pretty soon, I am making the decision that anyone that isn't vaccinated, isn't going to get vaccinated and has made that choice. Life will not stop over that decision.
 
The vaccine is available to all of them and has been for quite a while now. If they choose not to get vaccinated, that's their choice. If they don't get it from your poker game, they'll be just as likely to get it from the next one or their local church service. My 2 cents
 
I think your reasoning here has been very good. Yeah, of course the old guys want to play poker and are sick of Covid. Everyone is. It seems like you have an easy out here for anyone asking why you won't start the poker event up again. Send them that link. That's exactly what you are trying to avoid.

To me, it's simple, don't play in person poker unless the infection rate is WAAY down in the community or only play with people who are vaccinated. That's easy for me here in Connecticut because most people are getting vaccinated. So for my game, no vaccine, no play. I have the same thought as you, I would feel terrible if I found out that my event caused spread of a pandemic in my community. For your situation though, it's obviously much tougher with a different crowd.

Can your Eagles club run a vaccination drive where you give out chip bonus tickets to a tournament that is a month and a half from the vaccination?
 
pltrgyst said:
You are not protected against contracting and experiencing symptoms, or spreading the virus.
Click to expand...
To be fair, we never will be. Covid is here forever, just like the flu and measles.

Mel, I don’t think you can go wrong here one way or another so I think you should do what makes you feel most comfortable, in this case keeping it shut down. the geezers may not care if covid poker kills them, but you do—that certainly holds weight.

Jake14mw said:
Can your Eagles club run a vaccination drive where you give out chip bonus tickets to a tournament that is a month and a half from the vaccination?
Click to expand...

^^^this is also an excellent idea
 
1619790703144.png


looks like poker ahead could look something like this for many..........

just for review this earlier prototype was found ineffective in the prevention of viral spread

1619790781867.png
 
liftapint said:
I *LOVE* this idea! I will look into it.
Click to expand...

Jake14mw said:
I think your reasoning here has been very good. Yeah, of course the old guys want to play poker and are sick of Covid. Everyone is. It seems like you have an easy out here for anyone asking why you won't start the poker event up again. Send them that link. That's exactly what you are trying to avoid.

To me, it's simple, don't play in person poker unless the infection rate is WAAY down in the community or only play with people who are vaccinated. That's easy for me here in Connecticut because most people are getting vaccinated. So for my game, no vaccine, no play. I have the same thought as you, I would feel terrible if I found out that my event caused spread of a pandemic in my community. For your situation though, it's obviously much tougher with a different crowd.

Can your Eagles club run a vaccination drive where you give out chip bonus tickets to a tournament that is a month and a half from the vaccination?
Click to expand...

My guess is the vaccine is still scarce enough where they may not just promise supply to anyone wanting to host a drive. But it's worth a shot. (ha, pun!)
 
JustinInMN said:
My guess is the vaccine is still scarce enough where they may not just promise supply to anyone wanting to host a drive. But it's worth a shot. (ha, pun!)
Click to expand...
The Eagles club doesn't necessarily have to host it. Schedule a tournament for mid-June, limit it to vaccinated individuals, and tell people that anyone with a vaccine card stamped before end of May gets an extra 50% on their starting stack. Incentivizes going to get the vaccine without the necessity of a dedicated supply.
 
JustinInMN said:
My guess is the vaccine is still scarce enough where they may not just promise supply to anyone wanting to host a drive. But it's worth a shot. (ha, pun!)
Click to expand...
Maybe today, but the sad news that I am hearing is that vaccination demand is falling off a cliff now. I think within one or two weeks supply will be much greater than demand in most areas.
 
Jake14mw said:
Maybe today, but the sad news that I am hearing is that vaccination demand is falling off a cliff now. I think within one or two weeks supply will be much greater than demand in most areas.
Click to expand...
Yeah. But I am sure part of that is running out of eligible individuals, which is a good thing. The rest of it is the individuals that are going to choose not to get it.

With 55% of Minnesota having at least one dose that's pretty close to what I would assume the high water mark will be at the end. (I would speculate it will level off at 70-75% of those eligible.)

So I am not going to hold up events over that last 25-30% once it's as good as it's going to get, everyone has made their choices and taken their risks about which side of the vax wall to be on. Let's move forward.
 
Not sure how it is elsewhere, but anyone 16+ can get the vaccine in and around my area for hundreds of miles. At this point, I have to assume people not getting it are either lazy, against the vaccine, or have medical conditions that prevent them from it. That is their prerogative despite me being for everyone getting it.

I guess what I am saying is we are extremely close to the point where we have to decide how we want to go about things individually and stop worrying about people who do not want to help themselves for whatever reason(s). It is really considerate of you to worry about these people and your community but we are reaching a point where you have done everything you personally can. I am not saying we are there yet, but once we are at the stage a few weeks after vaccines are freely available everywhere, that seems like the point where you have to decide where you personally draw the line in how to deal with the situation. Since you run the game, you can probably at least negotiate precautions like masks etc.
 
pltrgyst said:
The studies show that you are ~90+% protected against becoming sick enough to be hospitalized. You are not protected against contracting and experiencing symptoms, or spreading the virus.
Click to expand...
This can be said for a lot of communicable diseases. The seasonal flu kills and the vaccine is only around 40% effective depending on the strain for that year. Again. It is up to the individual and what risks they are willing to take, if the host is vaccinated and wants to get back to hosting, his risk is extremely low.

We all face thousands of risks on a daily basis without even thinking about It. We eat at the risk of choking. We drive. We ride bicycles. We cross streets. We go up stairs. Hell, we walk. These all have risks and it is up to the individual on what they feel comfortable doing. It would be fair to say that many on this message board own motorcycles and ride them without even thinking twice about the risks.

This ultimately falls on the host. If he feels comfortable hosting after being vaccinated, than that’s his choice. It is up to the individuals attending whether they want to risk catching COVID, vaccinated or not. Like I said in a previous post, socializing to a lot of people is far more important to their mental well-being than dying from COVID. This is an individual decision.
 
pltrgyst said:
The studies show that you are ~90+% protected against becoming sick enough to be hospitalized. You are not protected against contracting and experiencing symptoms, or spreading the virus.
Click to expand...
To be clear, while the vaccine does not provide full immunity, it does provide significant protection against contracting the virus, experiencing symptoms, and spreading the virus.

When you are exposed to the virus, vaccination gives your body a big head start on fighting off the infection before it becomes established enough to cause symptoms or become communicable. That's pretty much how all vaccines work.
 
pltrgyst said:
The studies show that you are ~90+% protected against becoming sick enough to be hospitalized. You are not protected against contracting and experiencing symptoms, or spreading the virus.
Click to expand...

While no one is claiming it's absolutely conclusive yet, there is accumulating evidence that vaccines offer significant protection against any infection at all and against transmitting it to others.

Here's a quick sample I grabbed, just a representative example. Characterized effectively (at this point) as a "preponderance of the evidence" that vaccinated don't transmit.
 
Rieguy said:
Not sure how it is elsewhere, but anyone 16+ can get the vaccine in and around my area for hundreds of miles. At this point, I have to assume people not getting it are either lazy, against the vaccine, or have medical conditions that prevent them from it. That is their prerogative despite me being strongly for everyone getting it.
Click to expand...
In some places, it can still be a challenge to schedule an appointment for vaccination.

Each state has a different system, there is often little or no coordination between states, counties, or individual providers, and you have to have internet access and know how to use it.

And while it's becoming less of an issue every day, there is still more demand than availability in some places, which means if you don't know when new appointments open and get there immediately, you'll miss out.

So I think it's unfair to say that everyone who hasn't been vaccinated yet is just lazy or doesn't want to do it.
 
Rieguy said:
Not sure how it is elsewhere, but anyone 16+ can get the vaccine in and around my area for hundreds of miles. At this point, I have to assume people not getting it are either lazy, against the vaccine, or have medical conditions that prevent them from it. That is their prerogative despite me being for everyone getting it.
Click to expand...

When eligibility first opened up to 16+ in Minnesota, it was actually pretty tough to actually secure appointments. There were vaccine hunter groups discussing strategy about what times pharmacies tend to open up online bookings for new appointments and they would always fill up quickly. Now that fewer people are hunting it should level off. I had to spend a couple weeks trying to secure an appointment, and unfortunately I had my first made appointment unceremoniously cancelled. But I did get my first and will have my second in a week and a half.
 
Rieguy said:
Not sure how it is elsewhere, but anyone 16+ can get the vaccine in and around my area for hundreds of miles. At this point, I have to assume people not getting it are either lazy, against the vaccine, or have medical conditions that prevent them from it. That is their prerogative despite me being for everyone getting it.
Click to expand...

Schmendr1ck said:
So I think it's unfair to say that everyone who hasn't been vaccinated yet is just lazy or doesn't want to do
Click to expand...

You are right, it is unfair in a general sense across the country. I just meant for those specific people in areas (like mine) where it is readily available and easy to make appointments.
 
pltrgyst said:
You are not protected against contracting and experiencing symptoms, or spreading the virus.
Click to expand...
It's more accurate to say they greenlit the vaccination without fully studying the effects on transmission in the interest of expediency. Even with no effect on spreading the virus, it's better to get the vaccination out there as widely as possible just to reduce hospitalization.

But as I said from the start, everyone is going to get this sooner or later, just like any other communicable disease. I am just fortunate I will have been vaccinated before it happens to me, and that the virus will hopefully be in a much weaker form because of vaccination, even for those that choose not to get it.

But I think they are tracking transmission effects on a sample of folks have had the vaccine and shows there is at least some reduction in spreading among vaccinated people.

If I can find those stories I will dig them out later unless someone else does :).
 
pltrgyst said:
The studies show that you are ~90+% protected against becoming sick enough to be hospitalized. You are not protected against contracting and experiencing symptoms, or spreading the virus.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure where you heard "~90%+" from, but from my readings, that number is off by about 5+ orders of magnitude. There have been 331 covid related hospitalizations and 77 covid related deaths out of 87 million fully vaccinated people in the US as of 4/20/2021 per the CDC's report. That equates to a 99.99962% probability of being protected against becoming sick enough to be hospitalized and a 99.99991% probability of not dying from covid after being fully vaccinated.

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/health-departments/breakthrough-cases.html
 
pltrgyst said:
You are not protected against contracting and experiencing symptoms, or spreading the virus.
Click to expand...
I don't think the implication about spreading the virus is right. It flies in the face of how virus/vaccines otherwise interact. Plus, there's this:

https://www.jhsph.edu/covid-19/arti...9-transmission-by-vaccinated-individuals.html

https://www.advisory.com/en/daily-briefing/2021/03/04/vaccine-transmission

https://api.nationalgeographic.com/...-vaccines-block-most-transmission-of-covid-19
 
JustinInMN said:
But as I said from the start, everyone is going to get this sooner or later, just like any other communicable disease.
Click to expand...
It is definitely not the case that everyone is going to get this (i.e. be exposed to the virus to a degree that would be infectious). Anyone who remains sufficiently isolated until the daily case rate drops to insignificance will reap the benefits of herd immunity and likely never encounter an infectious individual for the rest of their life.
 
RainmanTrail said:
I'm not sure where you heard "~90%+" from, but from my readings, that number is off by about 5+ orders of magnitude. There have been 331 covid related hospitalizations and 77 covid related deaths out of 87 million fully vaccinated people in the US as of 4/20/2021 per the CDC's report. That equates to a 99.99962% probability of being protected against becoming sick enough to be hospitalized and a 99.99991% probability of not dying from covid after being fully vaccinated.

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/health-departments/breakthrough-cases.html
Click to expand...
While it's true that 331 / 87,000,000 = 0.00038% that's not the appropriate figure to use to compare to the estimated 90% efficacy for the Moderna vaccine. For the relevant comparison, the denominator isn't the number of vaccinated people, it's the number of vaccinated people who have been exposed to the virus under circumstances and to a sufficient degree which would have caused an infection (and hospitalization and/or death) had they not been vaccinated.

That number is much, much smaller than the total number of vaccinated people.
 
CrazyEddie said:
It is definitely not the case that everyone is going to get this (i.e. be exposed to the virus to a degree that would be infectious). Anyone who remains sufficiently isolated until the daily case rate drops to insignificance will reap the benefits of herd immunity and likely never encounter an infectious individual for the rest of their life.
Click to expand...
I suppose I didn't consider this outlying case. But notice even in this spot, you can't definitively say never either. But absolutely true to point out those willing to isolate to this extreme would benefit from herd immunity.
 

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