Hey all,

This virus outbreak has made me very worried about this coming summer. I have some tickets for the coming Victorian Iron Horse Roundup on C&TS this coming August.

I am worried if the outbreak might affect it as with other steam engine events happening this summer.

All I can do for now is stay healthy and pray.

I sure hope anybody can share information with me on this situation.

Alec

Early summer will definitely be impacted. Here in Arizona, the virus is not expected to peak until late April. HRA has cancelled the fall conference as we expect the member organizations to be focused on getting revenue. I suspect that this will be a bad year and that we’re looking at a hard recession to follow.

As I see it until we are able to test huge numbers ( and quickly get the results) of our people we will continue to be in our current position of flying blind without instruments.

As of this morning there are at least 6 new hot spots emerging and the health experts tell us that there is an 80% probability that eventually at least 40% of all Americans will contract the virus in the next 12 months. If they're proven correct that's approx. 125 million people.

Bottom line is that until we have wide spread availability of a rapid response test and wide spread availability of a vaccine we will remain on defense.

I have told my outfits to prepare to be completely shut down for the next 15 months and to do their budgets based upon not qualifying for any public sector funding.

Prepare for the worst....pray for the best.

IMHO-Ross Rowland

We have been here before but do not remember.

Nice article from National Geo with data from 1918 by city. Note how locations that put social distancing in place early have lower spikes, but also tend to have 2nd and 3rd waves that extend the period out. Locations that didn't have high spikes and less chance of follow on waves (perhaps because the virus burns itself out).

As the article also comments, the tools we have today are basically the same as were available in 1918, with larger populations, high densities and are much more mobile (one reason, IMHO, why the US is getting hit harder). But we have better communication, better access to what limited data there is and hopefully better care.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/03/how-cities-flattened-curve-1918-spanish-flu-pandemic-coronavirus/?cmpid=org=ngp::mc=crm-email::src=ngp::cmp=editorial::add=SpecialEdition_20200327&rid=19A150EC999394005DE2BC0ABEEC88F6

Bob

I’m with you! Plus I chose Cumbres over Nevada Northern Winter this year. I definitely made the wrong call. IF the world is back up and running by August I’ll have to be working most likely...

As a side note... operations need to do the right thing and offer refunds or at least a credit for future trips. So many people will not possibly be able to make it to Colorado this year, don’t force your best fans to lose money when there is a global pandemic. :-/

There are now nineteen (19) US states higher in per capita cases than Italy on March 9th when their country-wide lock down occurred.
(Graph is by Robert Williams and was based upon the data from yesterday, March 27, 2020)

There is help coming. Here in Denmark they just released a new test that can be done with simpler equipment and gives a result in 95 minutes.

The goal here soon is 5,000 tests a day.

“A new FDA-authorized COVID-19 test doesn’t need a lab and can produce results in just 5 minutes”

Healthcare technology maker Abbott will begin production next week, with output of 50,000 per day possible.

https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/27/a-new ... 5-minutes/

The question every board of directors should be asking right now is "what happens if we have no revenue for 3, 6 or 12 months?"
The answers will not be pretty.

Rob

When we suspended our excursion program last week we deliberately stated "until further notice" and immediately refunded prepaid sales, on the assumption this was not going to be a matter of a brief hiatus. Obviously any projection at this stage is speculation, but I would guess there's at least a 50-50 chance we won't resume passenger excursions until next year. Of particular concern is the possibility that COVID-19 could mimic the seasonality of other viruses and fade during the summer only to return with cooler weather - just as the tourist railroad business hits fourth quarter prime time.

Regardless, until medical science can catch up and get vaccines in place, the public may be reluctant to participate in group activities and the economic damage may well limit discretionary spending.

- Alan Maples
Everett Railroad

The historians and epidemiologists are very concerned that this could play out like the pandemic of 1918-1919 in the USA. It faded over the summer, mutated and the second wave was deadlier than the first. If that happens, it could well be a 0 income year followed by a bad recession.

This 1918 comparison is possible but likely a worse case scenario.

Likely if it becomes seasonal, a vaccine will dampen future outbreaks beyond next year etc. While vaccines aren't a 100% sure protection, still, with enough people vaccinated any future outbreak will spread much slower as heard immunity will prevent such a rapid spread through the population. Of course a vaccine is a year away at minimum but this would still be a game changer.

On the topic of mutation. Everything mutates, and I could be wrong, but it seems as though this virus is mutating very slowly and mutations at this point aren't generating new "strains". Keep in mind with mutations, literally every living thing is producing some sort of mutation genetically constantly as cells replicate, it just becomes significant if the physical characteristics of the cell, organism or virus etc start to change due to these mutations. See "Genotype vs Phenotype". Right now most of the COVID19 mutations are changing it's genes slightly, but not really leading to new "characteristics"

Generally with mutations that lead to new more lethal strains in viruses, these "more lethal" strains don't spread as fast, again there are always exceptions to any rule, but if I had to guess, I'd say we won't see a mutation to COVID19 that is both as contagious as this is currently and more lethal. Keep in mind data for fatality rates right now is still somewhat skewed as many many cases are undocumented or asymptomatic which will lower the fatality rate and also as cases resolve, more people will die unfortunately which will raise the rate, so it is hard to know exactly where this number will fall.

It's really hard to predict a "safe again" date and so many models are showing different time lines and scenarios. I think it is wise in this situation to have several contingency plans for multiple scenarios with a "hope for the best , plan for the worst " approach.

I watched an extensive interview last night on CNN between Dr.Gupta and Bill Gates.

Gates stated that his Foundation is giving a total of $ 100M to 3 companies developing a vaccine.

He also said that the only effective way we can deal with this issue is to totally shut down all 50 states for 30 days....no exceptions. Then on a very conservative basis based entirely on testing allow individuals who test clean or recovered to re-enter the work force. He estimated that it would take about 6 months following this model to get back to a fully functioning economy.

He said that if we continue to fight this as we're now doing we will be playing wack-a-mole for the foreseeable future and will fail.

My take away is that he's right. Sadly I think the odds of our national " leadership" listening is next to nil.

IMHO-Ross Rowland

Perhaps the best thing for organizations to do is work safely on the the infrastructure you have, repairing woodwork, painting buildings, rust abatement, filing papers, designing PR updates. Keep the membership informed as to what is being accomplished, and remind everyone we are "in this together" so please remember we are still here and dedicated to the same projects. Make certain to keep your necessary expenses paid up, and here I refer to insurance, electricity, water - you get it.
This is a good time to look at your grant writing skills and prioritize needs for the future. Life isn't normal right now, but life goes on. Above all else, follow the CDC's intelligent recommendations and don't be lured into a false sense of "this will blow over by Easter", because realistically, we know it won't. Museums and restorations can survive the pandemic by conserving resource on hand, doing the simple chores that have been put off until now, and planning for a slow, methodical step up when the "all clear" is sounded by medical authorities.
What else can we do?

Given the advanced superannuation of many of us in this industry, might it not be reasonable to also find ways to bring younger members of our organizations up to speed in all of the critical areas of expertise that might become vacant?