Trump announced tonight that the CDC is extending the guidelines to April 30th.

Dr Fauci said in an interview on CNN that he thinks we will need to stay in isolation until at least June 30th. and perhaps longer depending on how the virus continues to spread.

I'd say that this summer is going to be a non event and maybe the fall as well.

Ross Rowland

Agreed Ross. Even if things start to open up mid-summer (which is best case scenario?) - People are going to be low on money, potentially scared to travel, and trying to get things ready for the next school year.

Hopefully some operations will be able to have a somewhat normal fall and holiday season to put a little money in the bank.

In the UK, we are now being told it could be 6 months before it gets back to "normal", though even that may not be what it was like before. The Govt. is going to start reviewing the measures in place in about 3 weeks time though.
That will well and truly write off a significant proportion of preserved lines and museum incomes for this year...

There does exist one other POSSIBLE (albeit unlikely) prospect:

That we end up with a combination of 1) a slowed-down rate of spread, substantially lower than the often-"doomsday" scenario projections that grab the headlines, and 2) a demonstrable drug treatment that would save lives and act as a "prophylactic" pending a vaccine.

I'm not going to engage in off-topic rumor-mongering here, but the results of the first couple clinical trials in France and New York City on the drug treatments "promoted"/announced by Federal officials and medical specialists a short while ago are delivering 99+% "recovery"/survival rates, according to four articles I read yesterday and today on scientific-news websites. Essentially, out of over a thousand people between the two trials, only one died and only one is still in intensive care. Even better, a full course of treatment with the "generic" version of these drugs reportedly costs only about $20. The one doctor even said (I paraphrase) "The Hippocratic Oath demands that we dispense with placebo testing immediately."

This bears watching.

I wouldn't suggest there is reason for hope if I hadn't carefully read said articles with a skeptical mind, and then vetted the sources as "not agitprop" sites. Of course, implementation can be grandly screwed up by bureaucrats.......

This is going to be a heck of a challenge for lines like the West Somerset Railway that are in, or recovering from, financial issues. I have no doubt about the British preservation scene’s overall ability to bounce back from adversity, but the individual outcomes will vary greatly.

Rob

Apparently the $2T stimulus bill includes a $300 tax deduction for charity giving for those who don't itemize, it could potentially help museums:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ashleaebel ... 25dee866a2

I'm aware of a list of something like 30 UK lines that have appeals open at the moment, which includes most, but not all, of the major players. It's more interesting to see which ones aren't asking for money at this stage.
All activity appears to have stopped here on preservation work by the look of things, following tightening of rules last week, though some "unofficial" activity may be going on at a handful of locations, but with a very low profile being kept!
One site has allegedly changed all the locks so volunteers can't get in......
Our local Transportation Museum has completely suspended all activity other than regular security checks until further notice.

In Denmark, we are holding steady with the current level of closure and there is no discussion of tightening (as of 31 March). Plans are being made for a phased re-opening starting after Easter. We are guessing that smaller businesses and certain manufacturers will re-open late in April. We are planning that most schools will remain closed and re-open after summer vacation. Day care will remain closed, and that will be a problem for employees because they will not be able to return to work without child care.

A number of firms, and the government, are asking their employees to take their summer vacation now. Combined with travel restrictions, that means there will be almost no tourism in Denmark this summer. Remaining residents with summer vacation time (like me), will hold their vacation here in Denmark. One possible scenario is our museum runs trips in the summer, largely for a domestic audience.

We have managed to hold a linear growth rate in Covid here, not exponential. A side benefit of this shutdown has been that the incidence of ordinary flu has dropped to near zero. Our medical system is functioning well and able to service the sick.

Our work in the workshop continues, with guidelines that all must wear gloves all the time, maintain distance, and not share food. We are not closing "non-essential" shops like the UK has. We have been preparing our primary steam locomotive for service (SJ 1307), and fighting all the typical problems of leaky throttles and washout plugs.

Sweden has not closed anything. Restaurants, theaters, and schools are all still open.

Based upon last nights White House updates it's very clear that our current restrictions will be in place until June 1 at the very least. If you listen carefully to the 2 Doctors vs. the politicians it will most likely be substantially longer than that.

It's been obvious to me for a long while that until we achieve quick results testing on a national scale and with it a nationally available vaccine we will continue to fly blind.

IMHO-Ross Rowland

I've had some interesting conversations with folks in the railroad event world (railroad and model). If the virus takes a generally familiar path and is significantly reduced over the summer, some July-Aug-Sept events might be appropriate (though highly modified from their normal form).

If we are to produce any revenue this year, August is looking like the best bet.

Chase-in-your-own-car photo freights may be a viable summer option.

For now, the rule of thumb I am following is that events from October through the holidays should be scheduled, but with the expectation that they will likely be scaled back or canceled. I know of "close quarters" events like model railroad or railroadiana swap meets that are going to be dark until early 2021 at minimum.

I have been actively encouraging folks I volunteer with to stay at home and not worry about anything chooch-related that can't be done in the basement or online. Many of them, as I know to be true of almost every rail organization, are in the cohort this virus has been most harmful to.

The trains will be there where we get through this.

I want to make sure my friends and colleagues are, too.

Be safe. Be well.

What I don't see happening, even if restrictions begin to ease after June 1 (at the earliest), is any gathering of large groups (barring the development of a drug that can keep people out of the hospital; the current drugs being tried on critical patients does nothing to keep the hospitals from being overwhelmed). My prediction is the first major sport we see with spectators in the seats is a delayed opening -- maybe June -- of the 2021 (not 2020) baseball season.

Now, getting back to us, this also means I don't see any way local governments are going to allow putting 40 people into the tight confines of a coach until a vaccine is discovered. (I also think there will be a lot of residual emotional concern where people are going to be very reluctant to be packed into a tight space with others, even if allowed).

IMHO, we're not going to be able to open heritage railroading back up until late spring 2021. I hope I'm wrong.

.

Me thinks Steve Barry is spot on. Perhaps someone should tell the outfit selling tickets for that event that they need to wake up and smell the coffee.

IMHO-Ross Rowland

Those events were cancelled over a week ago per their Facebook page.

Sadly, I think this is closer to the truth than any of the other predictions I've heard so far. Clearly, people are still getting infected every day at high rates, and there are still a lot of local governments and individuals who are not complying with the stay-at-home guidelines. This does not surprise me. For many years, it has been my observation that the average human being does a very poor job of protecting the public from their germs, even when they know they are sick. This illness is so contagious that one does not even have to have symptoms to pass it on. If we "depress the curve" by staying home, but relax the controls too quickly, there will be a resurgence.

As Steve notes, until there is a drug that can make a huge dent in the mortality rate, or there is a vaccine.....or herd immunity because most of us have had the illness, we're going to be facing this for a very long time....months....perhaps a lost year for all of us.

I just hope that when this is over, the governments of the world will learn their lessons and put pressure on the folks who unleashed this to cease and desist in the types of activities that allowed an animal virus to become a human plague. They also need to put in place better plans to get an early containment on something like this in the future. That might mean that going forward, "world travelers" will have to do their thing with the knowledge that air travel to/from their favorite destination might be shut off overnight, and that they might not be allowed to come home without a quarantine....at the destination. Quite honestly, the primary reason we are all dealing with this disaster is because that did not happen this time.