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 URGENT - ADVISORY NUMBER 9

 Bang, the balloon went up last night when the Government announced that Auckland would be going into Alert Level 3 and the rest of the country to Alert Level 2 from midday today (12th August). The alert levels to apply until midnight Friday 14th of August.

This means: -

1. Auckland (Wellsford to Pukekohe): People to stay home or within own bubble. Must stay within your region. Inter-regional travel limited to essential workers.

2. Rest of New Zealand: Sport and Recreational activity permitted subject to health management including social distancing and gatherings limited to 100.

OUR ADVICE TO CLUBS

In “Auckland” all face to face bridge must immediately stop (no club or tournament play) until further notice.

For “the Rest of New Zealand” whilst bridge clubs might be able to function there are a number of caveats (social distancing, health management and, gatherings limited to 100 persons as long as intermingling in common areas can be prevented). We must remain mindful that most in our player demographic are of an older age and in the high-risk category. We only must look at what happened in Christchurch and more recently what is happening in Victoria.

Accordingly, until we get further advice on Friday, we recommend all Clubs in the “rest of New Zealand” also close for the rest of this week. Should Clubs elect to remain open then we advocate a great deal of caution. If players are unwell, they must seek medical advice and refrain from attending bridge. We know players may be concerned they are letting their partner down but if you are unwell and go to bridge you are letting all your fellow bridge players down.

We appreciate there are several tournaments scheduled for this weekend. We know a great deal of planning and energy goes into arranging and managing these events. However, we strongly recommend you consider cancelling these events.  No matter how we look at it opening your doors is a high-risk approach. Meeting the Alert Level 2 conditions will inevitably be a hard ask. If something were to go wrong, then the consequences do not bear thinking about.

I can only hope that we get good news on Friday and we can all be back at the table again very soon.

Regards

Allan Morris
CHAIRMAN                       

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