Article about the Cheltenham Races. Makes me so angry!

[buttheywereonlysatilites]

Seeing it all in black and white makes me even more angry than I already was at our government and SAGE at the time.

I'm on other threads now supporting the reintroduction of outside activities, but not like this. What the hell were they thinking?!

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/20/virus-dispersion-hub-packed-racecourse-cheltenham-festival?CMP=ShareiOSAppp_Other

My work colleague is Italian, with family in the north of the country, she was hearing first hand what was going on in Italy and could not comprehend why the British government was not acting.

Thanks for posting this OP.

I worked all four days in hospitality. Zero hours contract worker so didn't have the luxury of not going . Utter chaos , not allowed to wear masks and had to argue to get hand sanitizer rather than just antibac wipes .

Worked in a venue with 300 plus guests plus staff , no ventilation and so loud that people were shouting their drinks orders directly into our faces.

Unsurprisingly I'm pretty sure that I caught covid and a year on am being treated for long covid.

There were many agency workers bussed in from London , Liverpool and Newcastle who would have taken it home with them .

Most people here in Cheltenham guessed it was a poor idea and should have been stopped. No sympathy though for those stupid enough to go It was asking for trouble..

I think this was also as issue for Birmingham as the main rail access to Cheltenham for many people is via New Street. I think it compounded a bad situation that was already building through mainland Chinese students returning to the city at New Year, and (probably more so) half-term ski-ing holidays. Guys I know who are keen race-goers gave Cheltenham a miss last year, but we all got sick anyway.

I have to really strongly disagree that the Jockey Club have no power. I'm from a different horse racing town, and they have their fingers in everything. Don't forget that Matt Hancock intervened in a planning decision to build a few hundred new homes in Newmarket because his donors (including many Jockey Club people) didn't like it, and wanted the housing stopped.

Can we stop this? They went ahead in compliance with the law at that time. I'm sick of it being trotted out as a scapegoat. Other large sporting events went ahead at that time you know
Anyway many racecourses aren't going to survive the months of economic carnage, which may please you

@mnahmnah

I live in a popular racecourse city and they have said they will be running race days with 5,000 a day from May because otherwise they can’t stay open. I’d rather we didn’t have 5,000 people descending on our city on these days personally.

Chester? Bloody well done to them Hoping to get ticket couldn't get to any NH meeting last winter

Crufts went ahead as well didn’t it? I remember conversations on here at the time which couldnt believe it wasn’t being cancelled.

@Covidcorvid

Crufts went ahead as well didn’t it? I remember conversations on here at the time which couldnt believe it wasn’t being cancelled.

Yes and football But hey let's blame Cheltenham

@mamakoukla

In retrospect, most people seem to agree it shouldn’t have happened and question why the authorities let such events run. Yet with choice comes responsibilities. People could have equally stayed away. Surely good citizenship also means informing yourself and making prudent decisions

This. Different if you were working there and had no choice, but what that article tells me is that Covid was not a secret, unknown virus at that stage. Those who went as spectators did so in the knowledge that this virus was out there and could be deadly.

It was a foolish decision to allow large events to go ahead at that time.

Interestingly, someone bumped a thread a few weeks ago where the OP had tickets to the big Stereophonics concert and was wondering whether it was wise to go. The majority of responses were 'yes, of course.'

At the end of the day, noone is going to cancel an event as lucrative as Cheltenham unless they absolutely have no other choice. I don't know why Cheltenham is always singled out.

I had a meeting at the NEC during crufts week. Remember it being a very surreal time.
The train was absolutely jammed. I spent the journey squashed against other people. People were even standing squashed in the toilet.
I remember thinking that if someone in the carriage had covid there was no way of avoiding it!

Can’t imagine being on a train like that now

@mamakoukla

In retrospect, most people seem to agree it shouldn’t have happened and question why the authorities let such events run. Yet with choice comes responsibilities. People could have equally stayed away. Surely good citizenship also means informing yourself and making prudent decisions

Totally agree.

I've said loads of times that PM goes on and on about boarders and how quarantine should have been immediate not 2-3 days notice. How we shouldn't do Christmas and be responsible and how no one needs to be travelling.

Yet he left France early to avoid quarantine and travelled to Antigua at Christmas.

Yes I know it was allowed and that's his defence but if you believe strongly in something and call government ministers morons for their decisions then you don't do the things you don't believe it.

A vegetarian doesn't eat meat just because there's a butchers down the road!

People didn't want to miss out. Two of my brothers went to run in the Bath half the weekend before Cheltenham. Our parents went to watch them. They changed their minds at the last minute about running/spectating and just had lunch together instead but the impetus not to miss stuff was real. Now we are all used to the idea of anything fun being cancelled but in March people couldn't get their heads around it. Yes the government should have acted sooner and cancelled mass gatherings but the people would have been furious. This is a government who a)wants to let people do what they want by their nature and b)was running low on goodwill before covid so the idea that they would intentionally piss off hundreds of thousands of people when they weren't sure they definitely needed to was out of the question.

It's crazy isn't it.

I remember we had tickets to go to a well known comedians stand up show in a small theatre on the 17th March. We weren't sure whether to go, we rang the venue and they were going ahead.

We went, the venue was half full (maybe 1000 people there in total) and no one was sitting in their actual allocated seats because there was space to spread out. The comedian joked that this was probably his last show for a while and thanked us for taking our lives into our hands by attending.

Luckily, we did not, as far as we know, catch COVID but the thought that we actually went just days before we locked down now seems utter madness.

The government were blinded by £ signs. Led by a incompetent PM who didn’t even go to all of the cobra meetings. A layman could see what was happening you didn’t need to look far. Cheltenham,Crufts, Liverpool match, whatever should have not gone ahead. As another poster said the government has blood on their hands. Did they learn? No! We had the abysmal unlocking after the first lockdown including all back to the office, kids all back to school with little mitigations, unis back, eat out to help out, holidays abroad, I could go on. Then far too slow to act when numbers and deaths rose. If this was actually an industry rather than a government, jobs and performance would be scrutinised and as far I can see they are not worthy of their jobs. God help us if they mess up unlocking

@CodenameVillanelle

People didn't want to miss out. Two of my brothers went to run in the Bath half the weekend before Cheltenham. Our parents went to watch them. They changed their minds at the last minute about running/spectating and just had lunch together instead but the impetus not to miss stuff was real. Now we are all used to the idea of anything fun being cancelled but in March people couldn't get their heads around it. Yes the government should have acted sooner and cancelled mass gatherings but the people would have been furious. This is a government who a)wants to let people do what they want by their nature and b)was running low on goodwill before covid so the idea that they would intentionally piss off hundreds of thousands of people when they weren't sure they definitely needed to was out of the question.

My daughter was due to run the Bath half marathon. She thought it would and should have been cancelled and decided not to run in the end.

I remember listening to some of the people who attended Cheltenham on the radio. All gung-ho about being there and scoffing at those who had concerns. I wonder how many of those became ill. All the large crowd events at the time seemed idiotic.

I forgot to add that at the time Cheltenham and others were happening, my husband's office had already been closed due to a colleague being hospitalised with cv, so it was very real to us.

A lot became ill, can't remember the numbers but it was staggeringly high. They stuck up hand sanitiser stations and encouraged people to come. Awful.

First year for decades we have missed it, but no way were we going.

[quote Cooltalkin]@User133847
I probably saw u in the station , that’s my route too

Yes I remember all those fans and it was strange , I couldn’t wait to get out ,if the centre if I remember correctly it was one of my last days in the office before wfh[/quote]
We still had to work in the office right up until 23rd when Boris announced lockdown. There was a febrile atmosphere in there that day.

@Beaniecats

Can we stop this? They went ahead in compliance with the law at that time. I'm sick of it being trotted out as a scapegoat. Other large sporting events went ahead at that time you know Anyway many racecourses aren't going to survive the months of economic carnage, which may please you

Did you read the feature? It does make it clear it went ahead in line with advice at the time, and digs into why that was so. It's an interesting read.

In general Gloucestershire has had low levels of the virus all through, as has all the SW.
we live just outside Glos, but my parents are in Glos and my kids go to school in glos.

The only people we knew during first lockdown who had had Covid, were a family whose dd goes to school in Cheltenham. There were lots of cases at her school, not far form the racecourse, and with kids walking to and from and going on buses etc all used by racegoers.

Her whole family were ill, she (aged 14) was hospitalised as she is asmatic and hit badly.
I am sure they got it from the races being in Cheltenham.

@Beaniecats

Can we stop this? They went ahead in compliance with the law at that time. I'm sick of it being trotted out as a scapegoat. Other large sporting events went ahead at that time you know Anyway many racecourses aren't going to survive the months of economic carnage, which may please you

I don't have it in for racing. I was also furious about the Liverpool Madrid match, Twickenham and the Stereophonics gig. The article happens to be about Cheltenham and the government connections with the Jockey Club.

Of course people had personal responsibility back then over the choices they make. But people do actually listen to the government it seems, particularly if they message they give is a positive "it's fine to continue as you are" one.
We were due to have an event the week before lockdown that involved the whole school, indoors. It was clear that school closures were imminent, and that mass gatherings inside were an extremely bad idea. But our head refused to consider cancelling until he was forced to by the school closure announcement. Many of us had decided we would not be attending, but many parents had planned to. Because at that point, it was still claimed to be safe. Go figure

@ClashCityRocker

It was a foolish decision to allow large events to go ahead at that time.

Interestingly, someone bumped a thread a few weeks ago where the OP had tickets to the big Stereophonics concert and was wondering whether it was wise to go. The majority of responses were 'yes, of course.'

At the end of the day, noone is going to cancel an event as lucrative as Cheltenham unless they absolutely have no other choice. I don't know why Cheltenham is always singled out.

It's a bit unfair that the Stereophonics gig gets singled out. It shouldn't have gone ahead but it was a fairly normal Saturday night. Bars and pubs everywhere were still busy up and down the country and hadn't closed.

A few days later and the pubs were still busy for St Patrick's Day. Then Boris announced the pubs were to be closed but left them open for that Friday night, which meant it was an even busier Friday night as hordes went out knowing they'd be shut for weeks or months.