COVID-19 Forces Cancellation of Racing
Kirk Marcolina
Our active members would have received an email yesterday morning advising that due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the management committee has made the decision to cancel racing at DBSC this week. As such there will be no organized racing on either Wednesday the 18th of March or Saturday the 21st of March. There will also be no Learn to Race.
Members are permitted to sail on an individual basis, and use the club’s facilities when doing so. We ask you to maintain social-distancing if there are others present and ensure your wash your hands thoroughly before and after touching any surfaces at the club.
We ask all Members to continue to practise good hygiene to protect against infections and require that you not attend the club at all if:
you or anyone in your immediate family and work colleagues has COVID-19
you or anyone in your immediate family and work colleagues has been in contact with a known COVID-19 patient
you or anyone in your immediate family and work colleagues is in voluntary isolation, say as a recent overseas returnee
anyone has a cold or cold-like symptoms.
This decision has been taken to support the recommended policy of social distancing that we are seeing implemented on a voluntary basis by numerous organisations, with a view to flattening the viral infection curve.
As a community organisation, we feel it is important to continue to be leaders and as such we feel it is warranted to implement a policy that has been shown to be an important tool in flattening the viral infection curve to enable health systems to better deal with the influx of cases.
We are proud that our diverse membership base represents so many different communities and as such feel that as a central periodic place of gathering, we owe it to our sailors, their families and those other communities to undertake best practice in this area.
This is clearly disappointing. Sailing is important to all of us, and we are sorry to have to make this call. We hope you will understand and respect this decision.
We will monitor the situation and guidance provided by the relevant authorities including Australian Government Department of Health, and advise in due course as to the status of racing in future weeks. We will keep you posted as the situation develops and together, as a community, we will get through this.