Brazilian Jiu Jitsu - General Thread

The short version:-

Exponential growth, which is a characteristic of this virus, looks deceptively linear in its early stages and unfortunately this is why individuals and policy makers are not good at recognising when it is time to take action... They leave it too late. So yes, we should be maintaining social distancing now (Including stopping BJJ for a few months) now rather than when the caseload has already risen.


The long version:-

I trained on Monday night but to be honest I think I may wave off any more training for a while. Of course I don't want to but it's not just about my personal health but a question of what is the most responsible thing to do.

My personal view is that in order to minimise the chances of the present number of cases growing exponentially as it did in Italy it is reasonable that we should encourage social distance across the board. Maintaining social distance - 1 metre of space - is one of the only things that appears to effectively flatten the curve in terms of rate of transmission in communities.

BJJ is obviously the perfect setting for transmission and although the age demographic involved are statistically not those primarily at risk of serious illness or death, we could be part of the transmission process to family members and the broader community.

In our gym there are people from China, from Italy, people who work with them, people who live with them etc. There is no reason to believe that if community transmission is taking off then anyone in the gym couldn't potentially have mild symptoms and be infectious.

With regard to who has it in the community, I would be cautious of saying it is only older people or those who have been to China. Almost all of our early cases were individuals and families who travelled to Northern Italy. To be frank, it was groups of people skiing and that is reflected in the coverage and cases concerned for the most part. Even the early community transmission cases, which occurred in healthcare settings, seem to have stemmed from a medic who came back and had mild or no symptoms and passed it on.

I think people in general have difficulty thinking exponentially which is why many people don't quite get that this virus' caseload will jump in numbers quickly enough that by the time they decide it is time to take particular action or change their lifestyle then the situation will already be substantially different.

If anyone reads Nicholas Nassim Taleb, he's quite good on explaining why exponential growth looks deceptively linear at the early stages, and how this can wrong foot us in decision making.

Bearing that in mind, I return to the suggestion that encouraging people to learn about and maintain social distance is probably a good thing to encourage now rather than later when the case load has risen tenfold.

In conclusion, I don't think anyone wants to hear this but yes, I think the socially responsible thing to do would be to actually close gyms now.

I feel sorry for gym owners, though, this is going to affect them and indeed broader small businesses (bars, restaurants) in a big way.

Pretty sweeping announcements from the government this morning. They're going to capture tournaments (most of them cancelled anyway), large seminars and large affiliation gratings.

No explicit mention of gyms pausing membership and suspending training, but I would suggest it is the responsible thing to do now. If social distancing as a strategy to flatten the curve is worth doing, I see no compelling reason to wait.

Hopefully it is the case that the flexibility promised around lenders and utilities will be there for small businesses over the next few months.

JSBJJ and ECJJ closed, correct move.