I'm very sorry to raise this matter when I'm sure your email inboxes are full of these things. Like most of us I've been thinking of this as an inconvenience that might postpone things like organized bridge games for a few weeks.

I am rethinking the matter of "short-term inconvenience," and it's based on this article from the Washington Post today. They're reporting on mathematical models from the Imperial College London.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/03/19/coronavirus-projections-us/

If we're successful at flattening the curve, we'll save lives on the order of millions. The cost is that we'll deal with this inconvenience for the remainder of this year. Look carefully at the graph near the middle of the article.

The math here has the ring of truth to it. This paragraph really brought it home for me:

Like the hilly bumps experts foresee in coming months, the 1918 pandemic hit America in three waves — a mild one that spring, the deadliest wave in fall and a final one that winter.

There are surprises that could change things, particularly if we were able to develop and deploy an effective vaccine in  something like eight months instead of twenty-four.

For me personally, I don't feel I would be behaving responsibly if I opened a new bridge club before we reach the back side of the fall surge. I still will ... but 2020 is snake-bit. I'm not giving up, I just want to change expectations.

In-person bridge is going to have problems all year.

Best regards,
Mojo