With Virtually No New Covid Cases, Play! Pokemon Events Return to Australia and New Zealand!

[Water Pokémon Master]

A new story has just been posted to PokéBeach's front page:

• With Virtually No New Covid Cases, Play! Pokemon Events Return to Australia and New Zealand!

Posts you make after this point will immediately appear on the front page and vice versa. Discuss!

 

[don()shinobi]

Meanwhile Texas just declared they'd reopen "100%", so don't expect organized play in the States anytime soon.

 

[Poke_collector]

Virtually no new cases means there are still cases so I wouldn’t feel comfortable about bringing back organised play

 

[FourteenAlmonds]

Virtually no new cases means there are still cases so I wouldn’t feel comfortable about bringing back organised play

This is a valid point, and I do personally think that organised play should still be kept on hold, but it is worth noting that both Victoria and NSW (the two states with the two largest population centres) actually have been recording days of zero cases for quite a while now. I can't really speak as to NSW, but Victoria, where I am, has been at zero cases for 4 days now -- a short streak compared to what we've had at other points this year, but considering those streaks are broken only by one or two individual cases, I think its ok to say that things are fairly well under control.

That being said, I do think that we should wait until vaccine rollout is in full swing. I personally will be waiting, but it is good to see that there is an end in sight for the struggles game stores have been facing without many in-person customers. I know that my LGS at the very least will welcome the return of IRL events, and ultimately so will I.

 

[Rcxd9999]

Virtually no new cases means there are still cases so I wouldn’t feel comfortable about bringing back organised play

The thing is that the cases being recorded are people coming back from overseas and are already doing their two week quarantine stint. Almost none of the cases recorded in the last few months were community cases and in the event that it was a community case, the entire state went into lockdown lasting at least a week, with masks becoming mandatory for a week longer than that.

Not to mention but in states like WA, we've long since reopened our sporting venues and our casino to half capacity since July last year, with both our biggest stadium and our casino currently allowing a max capacity of 30,000 people, so Pokemon events are incredibly small in comparison (if we had any. I haven't heard of/attended any Pokemon events in WA since 2016)

 

[Mimikeon]

Virtually no new cases means there are still cases so I wouldn’t feel comfortable about bringing back organised play

I don't think it's realistic to expect the virus to be completely eliminated at any point, and certainly not within the next decade.

 

[Poke_collector]

This is a valid point, and I do personally think that organised play should still be kept on hold, but it is worth noting that both Victoria and NSW (the two states with the two largest population centres) actually have been recording days of zero cases for quite a while now. I can't really speak as to NSW, but Victoria, where I am, has been at zero cases for 4 days now -- a short streak compared to what we've had at other points this year, but considering those streaks are broken only by one or two individual cases, I think its ok to say that things are fairly well under control.

That being said, I do think that we should wait until vaccine rollout is in full swing. I personally will be waiting, but it is good to see that there is an end in sight for the struggles game stores have been facing without many in-person customers. I know that my LGS at the very least will welcome the return of IRL events, and ultimately so will I.

We may need to borrow your prime ministers as ours in the UK is an absolute joke. We have nearly 120K people dead

 

[Tytus]

RIP the dudes comment that got deleted by the Mods or Admins simply because they expressed their opinion. Lol.

 

[bbninjas]

This is a valid point, and I do personally think that organised play should still be kept on hold, but it is worth noting that both Victoria and NSW (the two states with the two largest population centres) actually have been recording days of zero cases for quite a while now. I can't really speak as to NSW, but Victoria, where I am, has been at zero cases for 4 days now -- a short streak compared to what we've had at other points this year, but considering those streaks are broken only by one or two individual cases, I think its ok to say that things are fairly well under control.

That being said, I do think that we should wait until vaccine rollout is in full swing. I personally will be waiting, but it is good to see that there is an end in sight for the struggles game stores have been facing without many in-person customers. I know that my LGS at the very least will welcome the return of IRL events, and ultimately so will I.

Australia / NZ starting Play! Pokemon events back up for the people who want them seems like a good call imo - these events are functionally no different to any of the other unorganised community gatherings that have started to pop up, if not better because official events have actual mandated social distancing / masking for those attending it. Those precautions plus contract tracing should be enough to cover any outbreaks, at least now that community transmission is essentially zero.