2022 Nationals

[mnoga]

"Travel by plane is more dangerous than bus" ... please explain because traveling by car statistically is much more dangerous than traveling by commercial aircraft. And if you are referring to possible transmission of the virus aboard a plane vs a bus, then a commercial aircraft's HEPA air filtration and air exchange rate and airflow direction are far superior to that of the average motor coach.

If you're on the team bus, you know who you're sharing air with. Science Olympiad teams, as a general rule, are not in the habit of chartering planes. Which means you have to trust some random selection of strangers.

If there were no effective vaccines, your argument would have merit. Consider, for example, the number of current cases in the United States versus India. By May 2022, vaccine uptake will mean that COVID cases will be extremely rare as suggested by the Classic Herd Immunity Model. From a practical standpoint, other diseases and accidents will be more likely to cause death or serious harm.

Furthermore, people ages 12-15 are now approved via EUA to take the Pfizer CV-19 vaccine. Even younger ages likely will be approved in the near future.

[Name]

You cannot verify with certainty that a random selection of strangers are fully vaccinated, and even with herd immunity, I doubt that is a risk many schools want to take. The same issue applies for Nationals: while most likely the event will be safe, they do not want to be held liable if something goes wrong. It's the same reason why many State tournaments were cancelled last year over only a few COVID cases in the entire state that many thought were too preemptive. While the decision is unfortunate, I also believe that the decision is understandable.

[Buckstops]

Anyone have a link to the results?

[aakoala]

Anyone have a link to the results?

The link is posted in the nationals section, and this forum is for 2022 nationals, not this year’s

[knightmoves]

By May 2022, vaccine uptake will mean that COVID cases will be extremely rare as suggested by the Classic Herd Immunity Model.

You make this claim with some confidence, and there's a good argument to think that it might be true. But you make it with rather more confidence than most epidemiologists are willing to express. There are a lot of comments being made about Covid turning in to a seasonal disease, people having to have annual Covid boosters, and so on, which are probably driving the choices that school boards make.

And there's a significant core of non-vaccinators, who might well provide a breeding pool to sustain Covid beyond the predictions of the simple models (non-vaccinators aren't scattered randomly in the population: they tend to associate with each other.)

This year, school boards have been under a lot of pressure from opposite directions - groups of parents who want to open everything up, have their kids have all the "normal" school experiences, and hope for the best for Covid, and groups of parents who want to lock everything down, keep all the precautions in place, and ensure that kids who are learning remotely aren't disadvantaged with respect to those who go in person.

I don't see there being such a big parent campaign for "put our kids on a plane for Science Olympiad." And without that, school boards are going to be conservative. They're going to treat next year as a consolidation, transition year - get everyone back in school, do normal school things, and see how it goes. If there's no new Covid wave, they'll turn on the extras the following year.

[Kylari04]

I definitely see your point, but again, it all depends on how everything is doing. I think the summer months will be pretty pivotal in deciding whether school trips can happen again, and a lot of schools will be watching to see this. For example, California is aiming to fully reopen on June 15th (source: https://ktla.com/news/california/newsom ... 0June%2015.). If they don't experience any massive surges, it is likely that other states will try and follow suit. If no new surges happen for a while (3ish months maybe?), then I would hope that school districts would start to look at traveling.
But again, this is all just speculation, and everything is up in the air. However, I really hope they can have nationals in person next year, especially for all the people who will graduate or move up to Division C the following year.

[SOPomo]

in fact I'm planning on making a discussion thread for recovering team registrations and the like next year once Nationals is over. But, it's something that's much easier to accomplish at the point of state, regional, and invitational tournaments, which can and do run on minimal budgets and are easier to shift around (standard disclaimer that it depends on the state, circumstances, etc.).

That would be an interesting conversation to have. While this thread is specifically about Nationals, I haven't yet heard about any invitationals (or regionals, or states too) which are planning for in-person over remote events. We'll see though!

[19sawickin]

Not sure if any other invitational directors out there will see this, but what's the move for invitationals? Like what are we supposed to do? The 2022 events list that's been released has a bunch of build events, and for all intents and purposes, is a pre-covid events list. But Nationals is supposed to be virtual...has any guidance been released about this or does anyone know what would be best for students?

[Unome]

Not sure if any other invitational directors out there will see this, but what's the move for invitationals? Like what are we supposed to do? The 2022 events list that's been released has a bunch of build events, and for all intents and purposes, is a pre-covid events list. But Nationals is supposed to be virtual...has any guidance been released about this or does anyone know what would be best for students?

I'd assume it's based on local conditions, i.e. attempting to hold an in-person tournament if possible. That's what the guidance on NSO says (it's the same doc as last year for the most part just with some stuff swapped around).

[kman1234t]

Not sure if any other invitational directors out there will see this, but what's the move for invitationals? Like what are we supposed to do? The 2022 events list that's been released has a bunch of build events, and for all intents and purposes, is a pre-covid events list. But Nationals is supposed to be virtual...has any guidance been released about this or does anyone know what would be best for students?

Nationals has said they are doing a satellite nationals and running all 46 events. I think the move if you can't do in person is to do satellite. Nationals also mentioned that they would try to do in person if possible so that's another option.
I'm curious to see how they handle events like Ping Pong Parachute, (Electric) Wright Stuff, and Gravity/Mousetrap Vehicle, where the venue that the event is taking place heavily impacts the scores.