There is one month till the show - anything can happen. Maybe the worse case scenario I can think of is if they make it behind closed doors. Like NBA games were warned they most likely will.
But again - there is an entire month for the situation to calm down (weather getting warmer and etc.).
I live in South Korea, the second hardest hit country, and I hope that the West is taking COVID-19 seriously. Public schools here have been closed since the beginning of March. University classes are being done online. The economyâs taking a hit due to people not going out. Thatâs not even including the biggest problem which is, people who have COVID-19, are either in hospital or in isolation at home in order to try to stop the spread. If they have to cancel Wrestlemania, Iâm all for it. Wrestling and money are just not that important.
The difference here - and the case with SXSW - is that the mayor has cancelled events in the city as they declared it a disaster in the city (I guess similar to a state of emergency in the town). Essentially, at a local level - they want to avoid 400K people travelling in and out of the city, during the time of a highly transmittable virus.
It has nothing to do with the president. If at a municipal level, Tampa doesnât think itâs safe to have 100-150K travelers coming through their city in a month, the same thing could happen.
This is bigger than a one off event, made up of mostly local fans. Itâs the fact that so many non residents would be traveling to the city, and bringing who knows what with them.
Most of us are notâŚyet. These posts about Vince not caring and trump allowing mania to happen donât seem based in reality.
All we can do is look at other countries that have been hit to predict what will happen here. I really hope the spread miraculously stops but thatâs not going to happen.
We are going to see more events being cancelled and schools being closed. I really canât see how things wonât be worse.by the end of the month.
Really hope Iâm wrong
Listen to this guy
I hope Iâm wrong, and things suddenly will be much better in a month.
But any event that sees tons of out of state / country / overseas travel, is going to be brought up in this conversation.
At the end of the day, no Mayor wants this coming into their community, on their watch. SXSW not happening is literally hundreds of millions out of the economy - but something that at a municipal level is seen as worth the damage.
North Americans have underestimated the potential impact of this for the last couple of months.
Itâs obviously a massive issue in terms of the travellers and the health care impacts. You can imagine overwhelming the system fast if you have a 60k public gathering.
You know Vince. He doesnât care.
If they cancel him in Tampa he will move it to a place that will allow it. Iâm sure some numbnuts city mayor will turn a blind eye. Like the Jon Jones going to LA to fight nonsense.
Unless itâs a Preaidential order banning it countrywide I canât see Vince backing down. Heâs just a bad person like that and bad people find a way. The man literally was the only person who went to SA after the murder. He will find a way if he can
From what I have seen, the US has taken it pretty seriously. I work in the organic/natural product industry and one of our biggest conventions of the year that was supposed to take place this week in Anaheim, CA was cancelled. Also, there are shortages on masks and the disinfectant wipes/hand sanitizer shelves at the grocery store are nearly empty.
Good to hear
A lot of the general public doesnât give a shit yet
I donât think a mayor would exert his power in that way unless he had no other choice.
South by Southwest being cancelled is different because I guarantee a lot of that was individual groups or artists that were performing deciding they didnât want to travel or deal with large gatherings of people.
The wrestlers in WWE have ZERO POWER. Can you imagine any of them saying they donât feel comfortable performing? Would Zack Ryder ever say no to doing the battle royal for the ninth year in a row? Hell no.
Unless itâs ordered to be cancelled no way is it not happening. And all the bidding and god knows what else Tampa did to get Mania also influences them.
It probably should be cancelled but it wonât
And the American response to it all has been brutal. Washington State is a mess, so is California. My brother in Texas also says itâs bad. Response has been so slow and just now are more people even having the ability to get tested
Really disappointing if thatâs the case.
We knew something like this would happen again. Itâs basically the flu, this isnât a fucking zombie virus. We should be better prepared.
Itâs a brutal repsonse . I just saw a horrible triage of two travellers with fever from Italy 
We knew something like this would happen again.
Well, WWE hall-of-famer Trump didnât, as he dismantled the NSC response team for these kinds of things.
Itâs basically the flu
We wish it was because then it would have been included in the flu vaccine concoctions this year.
But it is not the flu. COVID-19 so far has a mortality rate higher then recent flu strains.
The Tampa area was the first part of Florida to report COVID-19 cases, a few days ago, and now there are several more cases in Florida. Florida has a huge elderly population, which are the most susceptible.
I suspect we are about a week away from Florida publicly talking about closing down big events which bring in a lot of travelers I have no idea if the US will implement various âlock downâ measures as has happened in China and as Italy just implemented. But the death rate from this virus is high enough that things are going to have to happen that we here in the US havenât experienced in a long time, as far as public health is concerned.
As we go forward the next couple of weeks it is not just WM that will be an issue, but all wrestling events (that depend upon large public crowds.)
Wrestling before the WWE USA+Fox deals was an industry that relied mostly on public events for business.
Please donât spread misinformation
The mortality of COVID isnât the issue - it doesnât have a much higher mortality than influenza. In fact itâs quite similar and even if itâs higher in the end or lower it wonât be by much.
It tends to effect older people more severely. Iâve seen a couple of cases and in general most people are sent home to be managed in self isolation.
It does have a higher rate of spreading that traditional CV or influenza so that is the main reason for the cancellations etc - it can spread really fast and can effect older people or those wirh significant chronic health issues.
So we do know that it spreads a lot faster but it by no means has been identified as being âsuper deadlyâ like SARS was.
Maybe
Thereâs a lot of discussion about the mortality rate being inaccurate.
Mild cases are most likely not be calculated into the total and cause the rate to look higher.
A lot of these outbreaks start out with higher fatality numbers, but actually go down once all the data is collected.
I agree
We have to look at other countries where this hit earlier and use that as our comparison point.
Plus factor in that N America seems hell bent on screwing up the response to this.
Well, thatâs the talking point among some who (ex: Trump and his supporters), however that is not what the data states.
For cases so far the mortality is higher than 1%. The Diamond Princess has an exact count of those who tested positive (696) of the shipâs population, and of those who have died already (7), making a case mortality of more than 1%.
Furthermore, and this will go especially for Florida and doubly especially for the Tampa area, where there are a great many elderly people, there is between 10%-20% severe case rate, meaning medical attention is needed. This is going to be a problem in places like Florida with so many elderly.
We will know in a couple of weeks if conditions in Florida will lead them to having to do shut downs (as in China, now Italy, and as threatened this morning in Washington state.)
This morning Dr. Fauci recommended that those at higher risk, such as the elderly, to avoid large gatherings of people. Certainly WM fits that category. While many wrestling fans going to WM will be young and not in the high risk category, we must remember that in particular WWE fans tend to be older.
Anyway, this will work out in the coming days. From where I sit today, Iâd say there is a non-trivial chance that WM is called off, at least as a public event.
the ship is not necessarily indicative of a general population. You have to remember the fatality of influenza in the elderly is also severely decreased from the vaccine and that young people get it.
Young people under age 9 donât seem RJ ger COVID so they numbers may look a bit worse. Also there is likely a lot of cases going around we donât know about so the denominator is higher.
We donât know everything but we know it spreads faster than most and thus banning large public gatherings makes sense. However if you do get it unless you are old and have chronic diseases alresdy will likely be mild