COVID-19, Edinburgh Congress, SNCL etc.

[George Neave]

Currently we are following the guidelines issued by FIDE, and the Scottish government.

I, or Andy, will post the current FIDE guidelines on the website news page sometime today.

Many of the events publish by ChessBase have a large entries affecting international travel.

We will continue to monitor this situation for all Chess Scottish events as well as the SNCL and Edinburgh Congress. At the present time we are still in the governments "containment phase" and as soon as then changes we will follow the given advice.
 

BBC News:-
The UK remains in the "containment" phase of tracing coronavirus cases to prevent it spreading in the community, England's deputy chief medical officer has said.
Jennie Harries told the BBC a decision about the next phase of delaying the spread of the virus would depend on how fast the number of cases rose.
But she said the UK was "teetering on the edge" of sustained transmission.
Measures to slow the virus needed to be "proportionate", she said.

BBC Scotland:-
On Friday, the number of cases of the virus in Scotland rose to 11.
The Scottish government said two of the new Covid-19 cases were in Fife, with one each in the Grampian, Forth Valley and Lothian health board areas.

Coronavirus in Scotland - Health board Confirmed cases

• Tayside 1
  
• Ayrshire & Arran 1
  
• Forth Valley 2
  
• Greater Glasgow & Clyde 1
  
• Grampian 3
  
• Fife 2
  
• Lothian 1
  

Source: Scottish government

Thanks Jim. Appreciate it's a fast moving situation. Also conscious Edinburgh often attracts players from all over the country including overseas and, to my mind, the typical chess congress resembles precisely the sort of gathering to avoid should we move into the "delay" stage e.g. demographic with high % male and over 50 with many players in close proximity all touching pieces already touched by many others etc. Hopefully we don't move to "delay". I'd like to be playing but can't see it happening if the numbers go up as many are predicting. I am sure I am not alone there. Fingers crossed for now then and timely updates will be appreciated. Thanks again.