This was posted today, in case you missed it.

RAGBRAI Nation,

As we’ve stated previously, we are closely monitoring the situation as it pertains to COVID-19. We want to thank you for your continued support and words of encouragement.

As the situation unfolds daily, we continue to have conversations with our towns & communities, riders, business partners, vendors, and leadership team to determine the best course of action for everyone in 2020.

In addition to the conversations, we are monitoring the discussions on our forums, blog posts, and social platforms and want you to know we understand your concerns and appreciate your support.

RAGBRAI takes months of planning and preparation to execute a safe and successful ride. Our plan is to make a decision that is in the best interest of our riders, towns & communities, business partners, vendors, and residents of Iowa by Monday, April 20, 2020.

Be well,

RAGBRAI Team

Will the announcement come at 420 on 420?

Just askin’ ?

I feel like it cant happen in the best interest of the RAGBRAI nation.

[quote quote=1317828]Will the announcement come at 420 on 420?

Just askin’ ?[/quote]

And will the announcement be made at a news conference held on the High Trail Trestle? ? (rim shot).

See you along the I-O-Way whenever.

Or maybe in Muscatine’s Weed Park.

We all know it’s going to be cancelled, and I have nothing but the highest regard for my beloved state and the integrity of RAGBRAI, but it would be nice if the response wasn’t, “As we’ve stated previously…” when the previously-stated date of April 15th was covertly pushed out to April 20th.

[quote quote=1317838]We all know it’s going to be cancelled…[/quote]

Seems they wouldn’t keep delaying the announcement if this were true. I will not be placing bets until April 15th April 20th.

The concept of super spreading events seems to elude many posters. In the absence of a vaccine/treatment, 20,000 bike riders standing shoulder to shoulder in Podunkville eating pork loin sandwiches and corn on the cob meets the definition of a potential suoer spreading event.

Will the announcement come at 420 on 420?

Just askin’ ?

Is this the return of FSUFootball a.k.a. Prince Page? I miss that guy.

With the delay until the 20th and the tide turning (or starting to) RAGBRAI officials may be taking some extra think time. If they had decided they wouldn’t need a delay unless they are reconsidering their decision. I hope RAGBRAI leads us back to normal and is not on the tail end of cancelling in fear.

There was an article I pasted below also on how the actual death counts due to CV may be exaggerated also. This is from an interview with a Minnesota doctor on how CV deaths may be exaggerated.

======paste starts here======

“The idea that we are going to allow people to massage and sort of game the numbers is a real issue because we are going to undermine the [public] trust,” he said. “And right now as we see politicians doing things that aren’t necessarily motivated on fact and science, their trust in politicians is already wearing thin.”

Jensen gave a hypothetical example of a patient who died while suffering from influenza. If the patient was elderly and had symptoms like fever and cough a few days before passing away, the doctor explained, he would have listed “respiratory arrest” as the primary cause of death.

“I’ve never been encouraged to [notate ‘influenza’],” he said. “I would probably write ‘respiratory arrest’ to be the top line, and the underlying cause of this disease would be pneumonia … I might well put emphysema or congestive heart failure, but I would never put influenza down as the underlying cause of death and yet that’s what we are being asked to do here.”

Jensen said that under the CDC guidelines, a patient who died after being hit by a bus and tested positive for coronavirus would be listed as having presumed to have died from the virus regardless of whatever damage was caused by the bus.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” he said.

Jensen also reacted to Dr. Anthony Fauci’s response to a question about the potential for the number of coronavirus deaths being “padded,” in which the NIAID director described the prevalance of “conspiracy theories” during “challenging” times in public health.

“I would remind him that anytime health care intersects with dollars it gets awkward,” Jensen said.

“Right now Medicare has determined that if you have a COVID-19 admission to the hospital you’ll get paid $13,000. If that COVID-19 patient goes on a ventilator, you get $39,000; three times as much. Nobody can tell me, after 35 years in the world of medicine, that sometimes those kinds of things [have] impact on what we do.

“Some physicians really have a bent towards public health and they will put down influenza or whatever because that’s their preference,” Jensen added. “I try to stay very specific, very precise. If I know I’ve got pneumonia, that’s what’s going on the death certificate. I’m not going to add stuff just because it’s convenient.”

I’ve already decided, not going.

Too much chance of exposure, I plan on a week at the Katy trail instead this year.

With reference to the “exaggeration” of Coronavirus deaths, I think the doctor from Minnesota is just plain wrong on how to complete a death certificate (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/dvs/blue_form.pdf). He does a real disservice to public health efforts in failing to report influenza or Coronavirus when they are the causes contributing to death. Rather than chastising Dr. Fauci, he should be chastised for letting his politics influence his practice of medicine. Completion of the death certificate properly is not only legally required but also is the final duty we owe our patients.

[quote quote=1317857]

There was an article I pasted below also on how the actual death counts due to CV may be exaggerated also. This is from an interview with a Minnesota doctor on how CV deaths may be exaggerated.[/quote]

Not make this political, but that article reads much differently if you substitute Republican State Senator for physician, which Dr. Jensen also is.

Dr. Jensen thinks COVID-19 is a “mild four day respiratory illness”.

He’s also critical of his state’s Democratic governor’s stay-at-home order.

It’s just as likely as deaths are being undereported, as people are dying without being tested.

And, finally, as I type this, there have been over 2200 deaths reported today in the U.S., surging over the numbers seen over the weekend. It might be a little early to say the tide is turning.

Stay safe and I hope to see you next summer in a corn field. I’ll buy you a beer.

Largely an outdoor event like RAGBRAI seems like a low risk compared to a jammed music concert. Maybe that’s what RAGBRAI is looking at? Forget the nightly concerts, spread out luggage more to avoid rooting through others luggage, restaurants/bars limit occupants, etc…

The tide may be turning in NY it sounded like. Each area will have its peak. And party affiliation has nothing to do with CV. At least I haven’t noticed any position differences other then the blame game.

I;ve also seen an article that started going the path of risk by specific type of location. That one claimed there is a near zero risk of transmission when shopping. Assuming others don;t cough in your face of some nut job (they’ve caught a couple) don’t cough on food. A sensible relaxation of particular mitigation factors is more about understanding the specifics of the risk. Going to the groery store seems like more of a risk then eating in restaurants unless its one of those where tables are super jammed together.

We simply don’t have the data needed to assess the death rate right now. There are deaths that are falsely attributed to CV and there are deaths that are due to CV but falsely attributed to other causes. That is normal experimental error and I doubt it has much impact on the calculated death rates. It is easy to perform the tragic task of counting dead bodies so we have a pretty good idea how many have died of CV. We have no testing program right now and we may not even have a suitable test right now that would allow us to establish how many people actually have had CV. We know that many have it and either have no symptoms or have mild symptoms that do not lead them to be tested for the active disease. The death rate is a quotient of two integers. We know the numerator pretty well, we only have a very crude estimate of the denominator. Therefore we do not know the quotient and we will not know it unless and until a statistically valid sampling of the population is done with a known accurate antibody test. Which may not exist right now.

The lack of an antibody test also means that we have no idea how many people are still susceptible to CV and how many are immune. This makes it difficult to know if we are at risk of second and third waves of infections that could be a bad as this initial wave that has been artificially squashed with stay at home orders. It seems quite obvious that the peak of this first wave will have passed by the end of July. But you have to be confident that you will not be unleashing another wave of infections in order to go ahead with a late July mass gathering. There are so many unknowns right now that it will be hard to do that by next Monday. It comes down to how lucky the Register, Iowa, and every single pass through and overnight town feels. By Monday. I don’t know how to call that one.