Soaring Contest and Coronavirus

Real life can not be put on hold indefinitely. Maybe folks who are independantly wealthy or who work for the government can stay on vacation indefinitely. But the vast majority of us need to work and get our businesses back in order!

If you feel at risk, then stay the heck home. If you have a weakened immune system or are elderly, or infirmed, then it is your responsibility to take whatever precautions you need to take. I for one can not put my business on hold for another six months because others are worried about becoming infected. My first responsibility is to my family, not yours. If I stay locked down I will have no business to return to, I will be added to the ranks of the unemployed, and I am sure those of you who think I should self quarantine are NOT going to be mailing me checks to cover my bills!

Get used to this virus, its not going away and if your putting your hope in an effective vaccine, good luck! Don’t have one for the common cold yet, or aids, or many other viral strains that are plagueing us. And the efficacy of the annual flu shot produced every year sucks. 40,000 died last year alone due to the common flu.
Dan

Tom,

Sorry, but I did not take your comments as second guessing our decision. We wanted to explain to the soaring community why we made the decision to proceed together with the precautions we took. For those contests that are not cancelled now, maybe it will help those organizers in their preparations. I agree with the vast majority of contest organizers that this virus will make it almost impossible to hold a contest this year. There are a multitude of smart people working on drug treatments to combat this virus. Testing confidence and availability in very large quantities is not here yet. There maybe some drug regimens that hold promise, but until more data comes in, I do not believe a silver bullet will be forthcoming in the next few months. The Contest Committee held off removing sanction authority for the last couple of contests because they are a ways off. All we can do is hunker down, review our flights from past adventures, and get ready when the gate opens. We are still flying at Seminole-Lake with restrictions just like some clubs in the US are doing. However, if you are not flying, I would recommend taking a flight with an instructor first. For those of you up north, your winter season just got a little longer. Hope every one's family is safe.

So, I hope Jim lee is okay and recovering. Anyone know his present status? Hopefully he will acquire
the herd immunity associated with recovery from the virus.

Walt Connelly
Happy Helicopter Pilot.

On Sunday, April 19, 2020 at 3:03:51 PM UTC+1, wrote:
Yes. But with freedom to choose, the responsibility to choose wisely is inherent. I resent having my freedom and the associated responsibility dictated by others.

Freedom of choice and a population based epidemiological response to a pandemic are, unfortunately, and temporarily, mutually exclusive.

Does that freedom of choice extend to choosing what risks you expose
others to?

Apologies for contributing to thread drift, etc., but that's an interesting
(to me, anyway) philosophic question. And an important one. The United States
exists because of people who considered philosophical questions important,
with contributors ranging from Founding Fathers to grunt militia and
(ultimately) nameless/faceless individuals (in the historical sense) who voted
in favor of accepting the choice to begin a *national* experiment of a
form-of-government and nation based upon the rule of law, with the highest law
of the land being the - proposed - Constitution which they were being asked to
consider and vote upon.

History - and common sense - give the short-form answer to the above question
as, "YES!" Consider the simple act of driving one's vehicle. Unavoidably
you're exposing others to the risks inherent to your
driving-style/age/sense-of-personal-responsibility (e.g. drinking)/etc. And
then there's soaring, with the reality of landouts, etc...

In principle, the "freedom of choice" question is no different than
considering "Kung Flu questions."

For evidence principle is important in the history of the USA, one need look
no further than the Declaration of Independence (essentially a statement based
entirely on principle) and the Constitution (the fundamental legal
codification of said principles).

This nation's "proper final recourse" for civilly disagreeing with others who
hold differing views on specific issues of principle is - for better or worse
- civil lawsuits. Hugely imperfect, but there you go. So - and such - is life.

Flame suit on...

Bob W.

---
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
https://www.avg.com

Freedom of choice and a population based epidemiological response to a pandemic are, unfortunately, and temporarily, mutually exclusive.

Funny, I don't see anything like that in the Constitution. I do see things like Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Assemble, Freedom to practice religion of choice (or not) and other things under the first ten Amendments, collectively known as the "Bill OF Rights."

How's this for flames, Bob?

BRAVO!

On 4/19/2020 9:22 AM, Bob Whelan wrote:
Does that freedom of choice extend to choosing what risks you expose
others to?

Apologies for contributing to thread drift, etc., but that's an
interesting (to me, anyway) philosophic question. And an important
one. The United States exists because of people who considered
philosophical questions important, with contributors ranging from
Founding Fathers to grunt militia and (ultimately) nameless/faceless
individuals (in the historical sense) who voted in favor of accepting
the choice to begin a *national* experiment of a form-of-government
and nation based upon the rule of law, with the highest law of the
land being the - proposed - Constitution which they were being asked
to consider and vote upon.

History - and common sense - give the short-form answer to the above
question as, "YES!" Consider the simple act of driving one's vehicle.
Unavoidably you're exposing others to the risks inherent to your
driving-style/age/sense-of-personal-responsibility (e.g.
drinking)/etc. And then there's soaring, with the reality of landouts,
etc...

In principle, the "freedom of choice" question is no different than
considering "Kung Flu questions."

For evidence principle is important in the history of the USA, one
need look no further than the Declaration of Independence (essentially
a statement based entirely on principle) and the Constitution (the
fundamental legal codification of said principles).

This nation's "proper final recourse" for civilly disagreeing with
others who hold differing views on specific issues of principle is -
for better or worse - civil lawsuits. Hugely imperfect, but there you
go. So - and such - is life.

Flame suit on...

Bob W.

---
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
https://www.avg.com


--
Dan, 5J

On Friday, April 17, 2020 at 8:22:13 PM UTC-7, John Cochrane wrote:
A test that is wrong 50% of the time can be replaced with a coin toss.


Not true actually, a test with a 50% chance of being wrong can be quite useful.

Suppose 2% of the population has the disease. Take a test that has 100% chance of positive if you do have it, and 50% chance of positive if you don't have it. It tells the 2 people who do have it they have it, and it tells one other healthy person he has it too. Three people stay home, 97 go soaring in perfect safety.

Take a test that has 100% chance of negative if you don't have it, but 50% chance of positive if you do have it. 98 people are correctly cleared, 1 person is incorrectly cleared, 1 stays home. Well, we got half the sick people out of the population and reduced the reproduction rate by half.

John Cochrane.

John, I'm afraid I don't understand the first part of your example. If you test 100 people with a test that has 50% false positives, and 2 actually have the disease, you will get 51 positive results - the two that have it and half of the remaining 98.

Fortunately, the coronavirus test is much more accurate than Bob suggests. The main problem with it is its scarcity.

On Sunday, April 19, 2020 at 8:22:19 AM UTC-7, Bob Whelan wrote:
Does that freedom of choice extend to choosing what risks you expose
others to?

Apologies for contributing to thread drift, etc., but that's an interesting
(to me, anyway) philosophic question. And an important one. The United States
exists because of people who considered philosophical questions important,
with contributors ranging from Founding Fathers to grunt militia and
(ultimately) nameless/faceless individuals (in the historical sense) who voted
in favor of accepting the choice to begin a *national* experiment of a
form-of-government and nation based upon the rule of law, with the highest law
of the land being the - proposed - Constitution which they were being asked to
consider and vote upon.

History - and common sense - give the short-form answer to the above question
as, "YES!" Consider the simple act of driving one's vehicle. Unavoidably
you're exposing others to the risks inherent to your
driving-style/age/sense-of-personal-responsibility (e.g. drinking)/etc. And
then there's soaring, with the reality of landouts, etc...

In principle, the "freedom of choice" question is no different than
considering "Kung Flu questions."

For evidence principle is important in the history of the USA, one need look
no further than the Declaration of Independence (essentially a statement based
entirely on principle) and the Constitution (the fundamental legal
codification of said principles).

This nation's "proper final recourse" for civilly disagreeing with others who
hold differing views on specific issues of principle is - for better or worse
- civil lawsuits. Hugely imperfect, but there you go. So - and such - is life.

Flame suit on...

Bob W.

---
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
https://www.avg.com

The most recent data suggest that people are contagious 3 days before symptoms. So it is a little like driving your car not knowing if the brakes work. You are exposing others to a risk you yourself do not comprehend.

I like freedom of choice too, but the answers are not so simple.

Thread drift? If to have contests the country first needs to find a way to live with the virus, then this is a broad thread. If 1918 is any indicator, this thing will be over once nearly everybody has been infected.

For Seniors, there were no confirmed cases within 100 miles. Given what we are now hearing about asymptomatic transfer, it seems likely that there were unconfirmed cases at the WalMart and maybe on the field. Given the quantity and ages of the folks, 'dodging the bullet' seems more that just luck. There might be a lesson there of more general use.

Kudos to Rich and crew for an outstanding job of providing the tools to have a safe contest in what turned out to be a more challenging than expected environment. Even with the spotlight of Monday Morning Quarterback discussion, they did a great job. But I think that is only half the story. Each contestant also thoughtfully chose to be there and chose to use the tools wisely. The story seems a mix of top down rules and bottom up personal responsibility, both thoughtfully applied. To use only a part of the mix is fighting the virus with a hand behind your back. Instead of talking about freedom of choice versus a population based epidemiological response we need to figure out how to use both in concert.

From what I'm seeing here at the big box store, I don't think this will work with the instincts we have in the general public today. Why did it work at Seniors? One difference is that the group has a safety culture that is accustomed to managing risk individually in addition to having it managed for them. Another is that there was good leadership to nudge folks in a safe direction.

Country wide leadership seems in short supply, but locally I'm seeing signs of encouragement in small business folks figuring out how to proceed with their lives while keeping the virus at bay. We need to figure out how encourage this in the general population.