Quote Originally Posted by Muddy Retriever View Post
Much as it pains me to say it, I think July would probably be too soon to allow fans back into stadiums. I think the number of new infections would have to reduce significantly from where it is now. Official figures are now below 4,000 daily but that is only the number for those tested. I've read that the real figure is estimated to be more like 20,000.

True, football is outside and you could reduce capacity to space people about a bit. But what about the congregation on the concourse, which is inside, the cram in toilets etc. Plus the stadiums of lower league clubs by and large are even less well equipped to handle it than those in the Premier League. It seems to me that it would be impossible to maintain social distancing, even if you could rely on all fans to be disciplined enough, which you can't.

I hope fans can return in the autumn, as the implications for many clubs without the revenue are absolutely dire. But as I said yesterday, it wouldn't surprise me if the Government doesn't allow it until next year. I hope I'm wrong.
I think when we had 5000+ cases and were only testing 10-20k per day, it was clearly in the community among the general public and we don't yet know how long ago it first came in to the country. Quite probably pre Xmas.

Now we have <4000 cases, but testing is close to 100k each day. Most of these cases are from care homes and hospitals.
They won't tell us how many, but the whole of East Lancs, 6 parliamentary constituencies so circa 500,000 people are not really breaking in to double figures anymore.
It is almost entirely in care homes.

That's not to be dismissive, that needs sorting, but as I think I said earlier, if I attended a match at Turf Moor, my odds of being within spitting distance of a COVID carrier would be less than my odds of getting run over by a boy racer walking the mile from the car park to the stadium.