March 15 Covid19 Update

Hi everyone,

An update on our Covid19 situation watch.
The medical advice is the same:

• Wash hands thoroughly, carry around sanitizer if you can find any
• Stay home if you have flu-like symptoms
• Cough/sneeze into your elbow
• Avoid touching your face (eyes and mouth)

At this stage, we will continue running classes at the scheduled times.

Regular exercise is important to build a healthy body and strong immune system.
We will review this position as new information comes to light.
If the NSW Public School system closes we will close as well.

Lindfield, Chatswood Zido Hub and NSG/NSB classes will change slightly to limit physical contact.

• No sparring. Classes will be fitness, strength, drills and poomsae only
• Limited use of kicking targets
• Chatswood dojang air conditioning is set to 19 degrees. It's an old school system so the building needs to call a technician out to change the temperature. Until this is done, jackets/jumpers can be worn during training. You're welcome to purchase a Chungdo TKD jacket.

Manly & Beacon Hill class plans to be confirmed. Steve has been away without reception and I haven't been able to confirm with him.

Grading is scheduled for 26 and 28th March @ Chatswood and 31 March/1st April at NSG, we will reassess this next week.

As it has been the start of the year with a lot of new students, we haven't had much opportunity to do sparring so far. Students may not notice much difference to class aside from limited use of kicking targets and more burpees.

 The Zido Hub is already cleaned regularly with disinfectant. This will continue.

If used during class, Kicking targets will be wiped/sprayed with disinfectant after that class.

New Payment frequency

We have created a fortnightly payment fee structure to help with the current uncertainty and in the long term to help everyone's cashflow.

This is available only on direct debit and discount applied is the same as the discount we've used for the 3 monthly fees.

If you have direct debit already and would like to change please email us to let us know ([email protected])
If you are not on direct debit yet but want to take advantage of this new structure please go to app.clubworx.com/websites/chungdo_taekwondo/waivers/direct-debit-request/signed_waivers/new
We'll work out when your next payment is due and we'll cut over after that. The start up fee will be manually removed during our verification for existing members.

Analysis

source: racgp.org.au

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) Situation Report 53 (13 March) there are 140 cases in Australia (1).

We are coming into our standard cold and flu season and people are on edge. Currently the chances are most people will have a cold or flu not COVID19.

Australia's Chief Medical Officer has requested GPs have been instructed to save the testing kits(2) for those with:

International travel to an affected country or contact with an infected person
AND
Fever, cough, shortness of breath, sore throat

Analysis of the WHO Situation Reports from 7 March to 13 March indicates the growth rate of reported cases of the virus is 16% per day Globally Outside China. It's a growth rate we wish our investments would have instead of a virus.

Australia is in line with that trend at 14.7% (alarming as that sounds keep in mind we have 140 cases so every 1 new case is 0.7% growth).
In comparison South Korea is at 2.8% new case growth rate per day.

It is going to be with us for a while

Those waiting "until it dies down" could be waiting a while.
As mentioned above we are heading into our cold and flu season, on top of this the highly contagious + relatively low mortality rate of COVID19 has doctors thinking it is unlikely to die off(3). A clinically tested vaccine is still a while away

I initially thought the calls to lock down were to "starve" the virus siege warfare style. But further research indicates the lock downs are to slow the infection rate so that our hospital system can cope and effectively treat the severe cases(4).

The total number of infected people could still be the same, just spread over a longer period of time(4).

Countries like South Korea are showing good rates of keeping the virus at bay. South Koreans aren't officially in lockdown but schools are closed and basically everyone has locked themselves down since Feb 24. They plan to reopen March 23, however the likelihood is cases will spike if they do (this is a personal, non medical, opinion).

source: Our World Data (4)

Be alert but not alarmed

We are all concerned but it is important to keep a level head (keep calm).
Excessive stockpiling and overloading the health system harms the the poor, less mobile and elderly - the groups that are most at risk from COVID19 and many other health issues.

Analysis of the first 55,000 and later 72,000 cases from China indicates a number of key points(5)

1. 80% of cases recover
2. The elderly and those with pre-existing health conditions are most at risk. If you are young and get sick you are not at high risk of complications but can pass it on to someone else which is a concern. Stay in isolation/treatment and reduce that risk.
3. What combination of symptoms you have helps give clues of what illness you have. e.g. If you have a runny nose/nasal congestion it's not likely to be COVID19. This is important as many symptoms of COVID19 overlap with the flu. CRITICALLY important is if you've been in contact with someone with Corona or travelled to an affected country (as per RACGP advice above), the health authorities will track you down even if you don't know you've been in contact.

Stay safe, exercise, sleep and wash those hands

Source: Sydney Morning Herald (5)

Sources:
(1)www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/situation-reports
(2)www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/professional/chief-medical-officer-update-on-coronavirus-testin
(3)www.statnews.com/2020/02/04/two-scenarios-if-new-coronavirus-isnt-contained/
(4)ourworldindata.org/coronavirus
(5)www.smh.com.au/national/what-does-covid-19-do-to-the-body-and-what-s-it-like-to-have-the-illness-20200302-p5465a.html