2020 Chicagopex Canceled

I worded that poorly. I didn't mean to imply that hospitalizations weren't increasing in certain areas, but that the percentage of diagnosed cases requiring hospitalization is lower now than at the outset, but that could be due to the fact that testing is more readily available, so it's not just symptomatic or high-risk people being tested.

Also, as the information in that link bears out, the fluctuation in cases and hospitalizations varies greatly by location.

I work in a county hospital and I can confirm that our cases are increasing. The severity may be slightly decreasing, but the net effect is just as many deaths as any other time. I think we are improving on how we manage and treat our patients, including sending many home to convalescence. I'm hoping that a better treatment / cure comes soon.

I would think that most of us are hoping for that.

The problem with shows of course is that people come from everywhere to come to them. So the fact that some areas are more hard hit then others does not really matter; there will be visitors from those areas at a show of any real size.

In my area all elective surgeries and procedures were put off for 3 months. Now that everyone is flooding back into the hospitals they are testing folks. So even if you are going into the hospital for a broken leg and you test positive for the COVID antibody you are listed as a COVID hospitalization.

I am testing myself every 10 days as part of a study. In the beginning they enrolled 18,000 people in NC but had not yet distributed the test fixtures and kits. Then over a short 3 week period the kits all were shipped. Not surprisingly the number of reported COVID cases took a huge uptick in my state reflecting the new data. The media jumped in this without telling anyone why the state showed this 'surge'.

I find it very hard to differentiate where the medical theater ends and the facts start.
Don

Those people were infected whether the tests showed it or not. And they could infect others. So the reason for the uptick is much less important then the information gained. So simply calling it "medical theater" diminishes it's importance.

Everyone will be infected sooner or later. Many likely already have been and do not even know it. Does anyone actually believe that they will not be exposed to the virus?

The antibody tests looks for both immunoglobulin G and immunoglobulin M. A positive test for immunoglobulin M means that you have an active case of COVID while a positive result for immunoglobulin G means that you previously had COVID in the past that is no longer active. Testing for a past infection and then listing it as a 'surge' is not intellectually honest.

I did NOT 'simply call it medical theater', you misread what I wrote. In my opinion it would be naïve to think that this pandemic has not been weaponized and is a political football. The medical misinformation that occurred by the health officials was bad enough but once the two 'tribes' and the media joined in it has become intolerable. I trust none of the media reporting and very little of the medical information that is currently being promoted.
Don

Of course it's a political football, almost everything of any real impact becomes one almost immediately. If an enormous human tragedy such as the holocaust can quickly become one, then anything can.

That was the point I was making...others in this thread have listed a number of reasons for the show cancellation. In my opinion, the lack of trust in much of what is being promoted in the court of public opinion makes decisions like whether or not to hold a show in the fall much more difficult.

A virus, by its very nature, is a hard thing for experts to understand, predict, and eventually control. But from the very beginning when the Chinese Communist Party spun critical information that could have allowed this to be contained through today the small amount of factual information and science has been obscured by spun misinformation. Politicians are mostly interested in self preservation and not public service. As such, they are dialed into public opinion. And public opinion is controlled by the media and tech companies.

I do not envy the folks who have to make stamp shows and event decisions in this environment.
Don

Whether you run a show later this year rather depends on how your country has managed the response over the last few months. If one were running a local show in New Zealand, where things have been handled well, you could be pretty confident. If you were doing so in Britain or the US, where things have been handled - at a national level - ineptly (information about the virus was available in early/mid-January, followed by two months of thumb-twiddling here), you'd act on the safe side and cancel, as the organisers of this Autumn's London Stamp Exhibition have done.