The BladeForums.com 2024 Traditional Knife is ready to order! See this thread for details:
https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/bladeforums-2024-traditional-knife.2003187/
Price is $300 $250 ea (shipped within CONUS). If you live outside the US, I will contact you after your order for extra shipping charges.
Order here: https://www.bladeforums.com/help/2024-traditional/ - Order as many as you like, we have plenty.
if I were displaying my work and allowing people to touch it, I'd feel responsible for keeping everything decontaminated. Would hate for my work to be a vector for infection. I'd be putting my work under glass and requiring permission to handle, and decontaminating after handling. Not as convenient, but I think we're all figuring out that pandemics are inherently inconvenient, so best to err on the side of prudenceSounds like a real "fun" show, that is if they actually have it. How do you socially distance in front of knife tables? Does the table holder wipe down everything after anyone picks up a knife?
So are we all for Blade cancelling?
...........
For me, I'm going to do what I have always done. Just go by the most popular vote. Ask the people who have an interest in the show, what it is that they want. Because there is one thing that I do know. It's easy to say you should do this, when you don't have anything to lose in it. It's different when you do.
I should have rescheduled until a day after the election. That way the virus would disappear.So I am curious to everyone's thoughts on it. Either choice affects people's lives and the industry as a whole.
We have every intention on attending both BLADE Show and Arkansas. This decision is based on a review of facts and context.
The largest percentage of new cases are simply the result of massively more testing. Here in AZ we discovered that Mayo Clinic has been running an antibody sustainment study with hundreds of young folks. We know some of these people, they asked. Every week when they go in and test positive, they are reported as a new case. Hospitals are filling up because there is money to be made, and most importantly, made up, even on cases that would be perfectly safe staying a home.
The virus is mutating to be far less dangerous that it was. We know numbers of friends who have been diagnosed as having had it with no more adverse effects than a bad cold or flu, a number of therm in their 70s, 80s and 90s, but who did not have comorbidities. The vast majority of folks who have died are over age 75. The three most prevalent comorbidities were hypertension (56%), obesity (42%), and diabetes (34% percent). "Co" means more than one of these being present.
Age alone does not appear to be a factor unless there are comorbidities, which are inherently more common among older folks. The vast majority of folks who have had serious cases or who died had multiple comorbidities. The Navajos in AZ represent the vast majority of deaths here in our state. Virtually all tribe members have all 3 of those most dangerous comorbidities and they generally live in very close multi-generational quarters with less than modern sanitary facilities. One of our volunteers at BLADE has serious health issues, 2 of those common comorbidities, as well as other issues, and he's staying home, which makes rational sense for him.
While infection rates have risen, mostly for logical reasons like more testing, death rates have plummeted.
People have been going to large events and coming home sick forever. SHOT Show Crud, BLADE Show Crud. Given even a modicum of social distancing,mask use, sanitizer use, and "but just to be sure" stupid safety steps, I see no reason not to go.
Logan, one way to look at it is as the choice between life and death.
Industry is strictly the result of human endeavour, life is the result of something quite different.
If it were up to me, I'd put it on ice until the risk passes. I wouldn't want to be the cause of a single death, especially of someone who I know and value, and that's really what's potentially at stake here...
Come on critter, don't spread false information that downplays what's goin on. That's not cool. If the increase in cases was just 'massively move testing why are hospitals in your area near breaking point? All the locations reporting huge infection numbers are also seeing huge increases in hospital admissions. Its basic cause and effect.. and the death rate while down, is still 10× worse than a seasonal flu. Covid is now the 3rd leading cause of death in the USA for 2020... let that sink in. In 6 months its killed nearly 3x our dead from the Vietnam war.
Is it the plague? Are we all going to die? No. But this IS the worst pandemic in over a century. If the entire world treated this threat as poorly as we are in the states, the global totals would be insane. Thankfully most of the world isn't turning a virus political though. Pretty much just us, brazil and russia are. Which ironically are the 3 biggest hotspots... which is to say, listen to doctors and scientists, not political talking points.
Last ill leave it at this. Infection rates indoors in large groups has proven to be high. Look at the concerts, churches, protests, rally etc. Proven instances of one person coming in sick and dozens and dozens getting it. At 1% mortality rate and 13% hospitalization rate, just imagine if it spreads at bladeshow... and as I said months ago in this thread we will be the joke of the nation if that occurs. People mocked me then saying nobody will pay attention to a knife show. But if dozens or hundreds get sick and spread it all over from attending blade it WILL be a top story on national news. And the implications of that would be devastating to the knife world as were made to look like a bunch of uneducated idiots.
are some of you saying that the reaction to this pandemic is politically motivated? That the virus is a fiction whose purpose is to undermine the government, or a certain politician? I'm sincerely confused by the logic, if anyone is making that argument. If no one is and I'm misunderstanding, that's on me
Jon, when you talk about the guidelines and how ineffective they were in keeping people in check, and also note your city as being an epicentre, I can't help but connect those things. Do you think that part of the reason it was so bad in NY was something other than people not being mindful of the situation?
it seems pretty solid that a virus can only gain traction if it's spread. The way to keep it from spreading is to starve it of hosts. If you're agreeing with me up to this point, then consider a public event as being a potential feast for this virus, and that by holding one you are potentially serving up humans to it
maybe I'm just being over cautious and silly. Maybe not. I guess time will tell
There is no choice, once you are born, death is certain. The only choice you have is how you react to life.
If someone dies from covid gotten at a show, it's not the promoters fault. They'd have died of covid gotten at the grocery.