Mobile World Congress to run this year's Barcelona event in June with 50,000 attendees. We're speechless In what is either going to be seen as hopeless optimism or a heavily telegraphed super-spreader event, the CEO of the Mobile World Congress has said he intends to run its annual mega tech conference in Barcelona as an in-person event. The Spanish Mobile World Congress shindig is planned for the end of June – just four months …
Can we also send BoJo's Cabinet? Oh, and Bojo as well?
No. If you think this lot is bad, imagine what would happen if they were incapacitated - we'd get idiots like May and Grayling back in charge again, and they'd make Dido Harding "Senior Minster For Desperately Trying Not to Totally and Utterly Fuck Everything Up Again"...
I don't usually go but as a bcn resident there is fsck all else to do.
I had covid in March, one day ill. my whole family has had it and been asymptomites, the oldies have had the jabs, granny got ill however she is still with us.
It's time to move on. Spain was hit hard in march 2020, not since.
Lots of people infected is not a concern if they don't have life threatening symptoms.
I understand that some people get nasty side effects, but the numbers in Barcelona do not justify eternal lockdown.
I have friends that lost parents and grandparents, I'm not a covid denier. It's real, it requires care. I support initial, hard, lockdown. But I do believe that we are way past the point the government should dictate our response.
Governments have not done a good job.
If you personally want to spend the rest of your life indoors, do so. I recommend you take Vit D supplements because its not healthy.
> I had covid in March, one day ill. my whole family has had it and been asymptomites, the oldies have had the jabs, granny got ill however she is still with us.
>
> It's time to move on. Spain was hit hard in march 2020, not since.
And you expect that'll continue with thousands of people flying in from locations around the globe (including those with various variants) and interacting with hotel staff in Barcelona as well as venturing out into the town of an evening?
> Governments have not done a good job.
That's probably true. On the other hand, I don't think you can quite push the "let people and private industry take responsibility" line on a news story where private industry is trying to have thousands fly in with the absolute bare minimum of precautions taken.
"the numbers in Barcelona do not justify eternal lockdown."
You know your argument is weak so you've created fake reasoning to contrast against.
No one is arguing for eternal lockdown.
Sensible people are arguing that a 50,000 people super-spreader event should not take place this soon.
Hope that helps.
If you take an on site test, and it comes back positive, you'll have to quarantine in your hotel for 10 days. How do you notify people you've been in contact with... it was John and Meg from a large company in umm,, they spoke German, and French, and Italian or was it Spanish - they are a multi national. John's a tall guy. Meg's got brown hair.
"Plan for the worst - hope for the best"
The election held last Sunday was all but a normal one. It was prompted by a judicial ruling that kicked out of office the then-current president of the regional government, coming from a long-standing clashing between Catalonia and Spain... i'll spare the details.
After the parliament was unwilling to nominate a new president on late November, elections were automatically called. However, due to the worsening of the conditions, ealry January the then acting acting president (first acting after destitution of titular, second acting after election call) ruled a posponment to May with agreement from all political parties but PSOE, the one which actually holds the national government. This opposition was due becuase that party changed by surprise and at the last moment his candidate, which was until then the Ministry of Health (!) who left office to do the political campaign.
Then some anonymous citizen filed a complaint against the delayed election and the judges ruled that, being an acting acting president and given that the election was ultimately triggered due to another judicial action, he had no authority to delay the election and thus had to be held on February 14th at all costs.
So that's why we had to vote against all the desperate cries from the medical community saying it was the worst moment to do an election and the government hurrying to dictate voting protocols like early voting for elderly people and late voting for confirmed or suspected cases, which were just recommendations becuase the ability to made them mandatory was also judicially denied.
Unsurprisingly, we had a record low participation.
Well, at least it will give the Barcelona pickpockets and bag snatchers something to do, they've had a rough time of it since the lockdowns, they don't get furlough either, no union or guild to protect them.
The conference may just coincide with a new round of separatist riots too, the Çatalunya government has just been voted in and it has a huge separatist majority, plus the locals are not happy with the Spanish government's heavy handed approach.
Since touch is a very minor transmission vector, I doubt a touch free setup will make any measurable difference. And unless all hotel staff, taxi drivers, venue staff, etc. live in the same bubble and are also being tested, I doubt they can prevent the delegates, and everyone else, catching this damned virus. $Deity knows I want to get back some semblance of normality, but this looks like hubris writ large.
I'd guess that most of the attendees at this conference are there to represent their companies, and are on expenses, so doesn't this presuppose that those companies would authorize the travel? Even were I minded to go (I'm not), there's no way under COVID rules that my current employer will be authorizing anything but essential business travel this year. This sort of junket wouldn't be on that list.
Totally. My company won't even authorise local work travel, and personal travel should respect all local regs and restrictions.
At least it'll be easy to spot the companies who really don't care about their staff or the health of anyone else. Then the rest of the world can avoid doing any further business with them.
Corporate Darwinian selection...?
Even if 50,000 turn up, they will probably be sleeping in their hire cars because unless the new Catalan government makes its own rules, there won't be any hotels or hostals open.
Still, on the basis that there is. O such thing as bad publicity, at least the MWC is in the news.
I had listened to my English teacher a bit more when I was at school. I might have then learned the words to describe how I feel about the creatures organising and attending this event.
One thing is certain. No matter how inconvenient or difficult it may make life for me in future, I will boycott any manufacturer who exhibits.
Cheers… Ishy
How many organisations will be contemplating insisting that their staff should attend as exhibitors at this event? Those will be fun discussions
My money is on there being a lot of unsold jamon baguettes in the Fira cafes in June.
God can't believe I'm missing those chewy things - useful for soaking up the previous night's beers (Anon because obvs.)
Argh. I see a fair amount of that sort of thing in the areas around the Stately Manor (in Michigan) and the Mountain Fastness (New Mexico), both of which see a fair bit of snow.
If it snows on your car, and you want to drive, clean off at least all of the glass -- windows and lights. If you're a halfway decent human and able, clean off the horizontal surfaces as well, so snow and ice don't blow off and obscure your vision or someone else's. And at that point you might as well clean off the entire vehicle.
Driving on the public roads is a privilege, and should be earned by making at least the basic effort to keep your vehicle roadworthy.
There, that's my unrelated-axe-grinding for today.
then it's 100% not fatal FFS! Stop with the fucking hysteria.
I'm considerably over 42 and currently recovering from covid, it's unpleasant to the point of being tiresome but way less dramatic than the flu. I am on the otherhand concerned for my mother's safety, but she's not planning on attending MWC
> Under 42 and heathly then it's 100% not fatal FFS!
Even if that were correct - and it's not - what about any over 42s you run into in the 2 weeks after contracting it (not yet having realised you have)? Or indeed anyone under 42 who may be immunocompromised (whether they know it or not)? Or, taking your example, might be working near your mother?
It's good to hear that your anonymous self isn't suffering too badly with it, but that's not the case for everyone, and where it's not the case, it tends to be pretty damn severe.
Rather than getting all hysterical about "the fucking hysteria", maybe reflect on the impact on others a bit more? Especially in the context of talking about whether MWC should go ahead. Junkets can happen in other years.
Fatality rate is not the whole story. I hope you get better soon, but you should be aware that you have a substantial chance of needing multiple months to recover. A substantial number people still have symptoms after six months. Some are bad enough that they have difficulty working. I'm also young enough that death would be unlikely, but I really, really don't want to suffer fatigue or confusion for months and months.
Also, your mother is not attending MWC, but the man in the grocery line just ahead of her might have, the week earlier. Or the man's wife, two weeks earlier. Or the man's wife's boss, three weeks earlier. Or the man's wife's boss's husband, the previous month. Or... well, you get the point, I hope. Exponentials are nasty that way.
Did you bother to read, or do you not comprehend? 0-42 and healthy! Check your reading before posting.
And the 0-42 and health figures are from the Latvian Health Ministry, you're welcome.
Poland has had the good sense to open the shops before noon only to the over 65s, why can't anyone see that as a good idea? Isolate those that need isolation, not the whole population.
People keep saying it's just like flu.
Unsure if they realise what flu would be like in populations starting with no herd immunity and no annual vaccination campaign.
It would be very bad (understatement).
The current virus is "only" a few times worse than that.
Let's at least wait until we've got everyone vaccinated before even considering 50,000 people super-spreader events eh?
Right. It's just like the flu, in the sense that it's a highly-transmissible disease with multiple variants and a wide range of effects, severity, and mortality, which has caused at least one pandemic reaching millions of deaths.
Anyone who thinks "just like flu" is a consolation is an idiot.
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