Bridge in Oz

At the time of writing, reopening is just a distant dream for bridge clubs. However as the time draws nearer, there may be decisions to make if COVID is still on the prowl (and the same could hold for future epidemics). When to open? With what precautions? And who should decide?

Anticipating the possibility that answers to these questions may not be clear (indeed before clubs closed there was debate on these matters), Trumps has suggested that a panel be formed to deliberate such matters if and when required. Doctors, scientists and others could be on this panel. What do you think?

Good questions! I'm hoping a vaccination becomes available, and then perhaps players can be required to show proof of immunity. Absent that, it doesn't look good for "real life" bridge.

My local club sent out an electronic questionnaire on this topic a couple of days ago. Among other things asking members' opinions about what safety measures should be taken when the club re-opens.

Honestly though, I think the opinions of public health experts should matter more. I think most club players know very little about how the disease spreads, and to what degree by those showing no symptoms.

For me it's scary how little even the experts know.

The advice we have received from the local police (to whom we were directed by the Health Minister's office) is that they are now OK for bridge clubs in their area to reopen. Our own assessment of the risks is that the move to social distancing and improved hygiene (amongst other factors) is making 2020 safer last year, though a COVID spike could change this; do others agree?

The really good news is that nobody in Australia is reported to have died from COVID-19 since 24 May. The reported number of active cases as of 13 June is 388. In the past most cases were imported from overseas, and that source has been shut down.

What's concerning is the unknown number of undetected or unreported cases, and the unknown number of deaths that were misclassified as being from another cause.

Of 6,940 known closed cases so far, 102 or 1.5% died. Recent analysis estimates the worldwide overall COVID-19 death rate, including from unconfirmed cases, at 0.66%. This suggests that Australia has actual cases about 2.3 times the number of known cases.

This means we estimate total active infections at 892. That's one per 28,587 of population, about 0.000035 probability. The corresponding probability of a random person not being infected is 0.999965. This includes guesswork, but the numbers are in a plausible area.

Now let's look at duplicate bridge events. We will want the probability of any infected person attending an event to be very low.

If a club game has 13 tables, 52 players, then based on the above this probability is:

1 - (0.999965 ^ 52) = 0.0018 = 0.18%. Not too bad.

Larger events will have many more players, however most contact will be within a section so not too different from the above. The risk will accumulate according to the number of sessions that you play, and those who play a lot of bridge (especially in densely populated areas) will accumulate significant risk.

Let's look also at the type of contact within a session of play. Most or all players sitting in the opposite direction from you and your partner will sit at your table. Airborne infection from those is possible. Players seated in your direction will handle the same cards and boards, so the surfaces present the risk from those.

Accordingly, I think wearing masks and using sanitiser after each round should be among the minimum precautions taken.

Also, here's an article that clears up some recent misconceptions about how the virus is transmitted.