The coronavirus pandemic and resulting lockdown have impacted another major event. The organizers behind the biggest annual pop culture gathering have announced the 2020 San Diego Comic-Con has been canceled.
See you at SDCC 2021
In a statement on the official site, Comic-Con International stated that for the first time in its 50-year history, there will be no Comic-Con held in San Diego. However, they do plan to bring back the event in 2021. The announcement didn’t come as a surprise as Comic-Con International had already canceled WonderCon, which was to take place last weekend in Anaheim, California.
Comic-Con 2020 was set to be held from July 23rd to the 26th in San Diego, California. Earlier this week, California Governor Gavin Newsom announced mass gatherings are likely not going to be allowed in California for many months. The San Diego Convention Center, home of SDCC, has already been re-purposed into a temporary shelter, and this week started conducting COVID-19 testing.
According to SDCC, those who purchased badges for Comic-Con 2020 will have the option to request a refund or transfer their badges to Comic-Con 2021. All hotel reservations made through the official SDCC system will also be canceled and refunded.
San Diego Convention Center has been re-purposed as a homeless shelter during the pandemic (NBC San Diego)
Opportunity lost for Star Trek fans
San Diego Comic-Con has been a big part of Star Trek over the years. The annual convention often features a number of Trek-related events, including official panels, product announcements, exclusive merchandise, and previews from both CBS and Paramount. If CBS were to officially announce any new Star Trek shows, SDCC 2020 would have been a likely place and time to do it.
As of now, Creation’s annual Star Trek Las Vegas event is still scheduled to happen at the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada during the first weekend of August. Creation has stated that they are working with local health officials and adjusting their schedule accordingly. They have been postponing and rescheduling other conventions that were planned for April and May.
Sir Patrick Stewart at the Star Trek: Picard panel at San Diego Comic-Con 2019
TrekMovie will continue to monitor events and will provide any updates related to Star Trek conventions and events.
I’m not surprised San Diego Comic-Con was canceled this year. I wasn’t planning to go there, maybe in a few years. When I go there, I will check out Star Trek, Marvel, DC, Star Wars and other events at Comic-Con. Bring out my inner geekness.
All the other major cultural events on the calendar are not happening either.
2020 is the worst year ever!
Star Trek Las Vegas might not happen but the COVID-19 pandemic could be less severe by August. Who knows at this point.
2020 isn’t even in the Top 10 of worst years ever.
1968 is probably the worst year of my lifetime, by a wide margin. Before that, 1929-30 was probably the worst year of the 20th Century. 1918-19 was catastrophic because of the Spanish Flu (which makes COVID-19 look like a minor head cold) and the First World War. 1941-42 where the world came to the brink of being taken over by two dictatorships.
Indeed. This has been a very rough year so far, no doubt, but it could be much, much worse. At least we have this technology here to instantly keep in touch with people around the world to help cope with the hardships. Something previous generations could only dream.
AllenWrench I’m really glad to be safe here at home with my family.
We have the technology to keep in touch with people around the world.
We have the science to cure this disease.
Previous generations could only dream. There is light at the end of the tunnel.
Well put.
“1918-19 was catastrophic because of the Spanish Flu (which makes COVID-19 look like a minor head cold)”
You are not wrong about the other things but very wrong about this point. The reason the Spanish Flu had such a high death toll has more to with the political and economic situation after the war (countries actively covering it up for the entire time, weakened soldiers in trenches and then bringing it home, no lockdowns/distancing, dire healthcare situation) than the disease itself.
By all means, this disease is worse than the Spanish Flu both in contagiousness and mortality rate. Consider: there were no ventilators in 1918, and almost all critical cases would have died if this occured back then, leading to a fatality rate near 20%. Even now, we have a fatality rate higher than the Spanish flu DESPITE ventilators.
The reason we are not seeing a similiar death toll is precicely because of the stark and economically hurting measures (lockdowns, social distancing) being enacted, which has never before happened in history. Places where the hospital system has been overwhelmed and people left dieing at home without medical intervention show the true face of the disease. People should never confuse cause and effect. Basically all countries are self-enflicting a Great Depression upon them only because the alternative would be far, far worse.
I recommend reading the Imperial College study which outlines all scenarios with and without intervention and which has informed the policy reaction both in the UK and the US.
Vulcan Soul the Spanish Flu wasn’t from Spain but it originated from Kansas. Governments did cover ups back then after World War 1.
The US is taking steps to slow down the virus. The country is pretty much in lockdown.
The UK prime minister Boris Johnson was sick with the infection but he’s doing okay. I don’t like in the UK or Europe so I can’t say for sure what’s going on there.
Stay home and wear a mask. Social distancing and wash your hands. You absolutely nailed it.
Well in the middle ages in times of the pestilence there sometimes were drastic actions as well. And it was called black death for a reason (some regions had a death toll of about 70% of the population)
Difference is that they had no modern medicine, not even modern theories about medicine. There were no national governments to coordinate efforts, so basically every city acted independently. And there was no globalisation of information (you knew the black death was coming when people of your neighbour towns were dying) but also no globalisation to spread the disease like coronavirus spread.
But also back then over 90% of the population never journeyed more than 20 miles outside their home their entire lives. Now days things can spread just because people are traveling all over the world.
The Black Death spread all over the known world. It started in Central Asia and was carried west by traders on the Silk Road to major trade hubs like Constantinople (today’s Istanbul, Turkey), where it got on ships and was carried to ports in Europe, and from there spread like wildfire. 50%-60% of the population of Europe died. It didn’t matter if they traveled anywhere or not.
That just means it took longer to spread, Thorny. There were traders who traveled, of course. It’s just that the vast majority of people never went anywhere.
We can now travel across continents because of airplanes. That has made things worse. People are traveling all over the world.
You are right ML31
As Thorny said it spread as well. But I guess the speed is different in a globalised world.
I find it quite fascinating that somehow we are all connected with each other and even a distant region somewhere in China. A Virus can’t walk, can’t swim, can’t fly… abd though reaches the whole planet coz somehow all human beings are connected with each other through other human beings
Markus this is the 21st century not the middle ages. The black death and the plague was worse back then. There was no globalisation back then. No modern medicine or science.
We are going through a plague of our own. History repeats itself for a reason.
I just reacted on “which has never before happened in history.”
That’s true for the recent past. But looking at a broader history we find similar situations and similar reactions.
So yes in part history repeats…
and we finally realize what technical progress accomplished. The big difference is coronavirus is a 1 in 100 years event while back then every virus could create death tolls like this.
Vulcan Soul… Not sure what you’re saying. COVID-19’s fatality rate is nowhere near 20%. It is at about 4% in the US and the worst is 13% in Italy, but is widely expected to be much lower when all is said and done because so little testing has been done and many people had mild symptoms and never reported it. There was no such question about the 1918 pandemic. If you got it, you knew and the doctor’s knew you had it. Many people died within 24 hours of contracting it. And they died horribly. Many turning blue from lack of oxygen, many bleeding from every body orifice. The Spanish Flu mostly struck down healthy people aged 20-35, while COVID-19’s victims are mostly the elderly or those with underlying health problems. (It is believed that older people in 1918 had already experienced a similar strain of flu earlier in life and had developed an immunity that the younger victims did not.)
I would suggest reading “The Great Influenza” by John Barry for more information. Read that and tell me again how COVID-19 is worse. You won’t. Trust me.
Thorny COVID-19 is very contagious but I don’t know how that compares to the Spanish Flu in terms of the fatality rate. We have ventilators. They didn’t have the equipment back then.
All influenza in general is extremely contagious. 3% to 11% (depending on the strain/year) of the population get the flu every year. Some studies say up to 20% of the population gets the flu every year, but this is based on the number of people who don’t seek treatment for it or are asymptomatic (didn’t know they had it), so it is very hard to substantiate such numbers.
There are no good numbers for COVID-19 communicability yet. But the current number is 723,729 cases of COVID-19 in the US, which has a population of 328 million, which is 2.2%.
A week ago the mortality rate in the US was, if you did the math, just over 2%. But I think it much lower because that is only taking the known cases into consideration. I think there are a lot more infected than are reported. Which would bring that % further. Almost certainly below 2%.
There is usually a time lag between getting infected/showing first symptoms and dying. That’s why it’s not as simple as comparing today’s number of known cases with today’s number of deaths. You are right that there are probably a lot more infected than are reported. However, there are concerns that the number of COVID-19 related deaths may also be underreported in many countries. For example, I think I read that the UK only reports people who have died in hospitals. But apparently, there have also been a lot of unexpected deaths in retirement homes lately which are not counted (but may have been caused by COVID-19). You will probably have to wait until this has blown over to get a better picture of mortality rates. Even then numbers will remain uncertain unless you test everybody (that is everybody left alive as well as everybody who died).
I did the math for the US numbers. It is possible there could be some unreported covid related deaths. But I suspect not that many. Especially compared to the unreported cases. So I still think there is enough evidence out there to support the mortality rate is lower.
As I was saying it’s not just the unreported cases. There are lot’s of people who die from COVID-19 after being in the hospital for weeks. So many of the people dying right now were infected when the number of overall cases was still much lower. The number of deaths will probably continue to go up for some time when the number of infections is already going down.
The number of deaths will always lag behind the number of reported cases. But at this point I think it fair to conclude the mortality rate is pretty darn low in this country.
Thorny
2020 is the worst year ever in my lifetime. I’m 18 and this COVID-19 has really frightened me to an extent.
The Spanish Flu was bad in its day and the First World War. Don’t forget World War 2 and the Cold war.
By those two dictatorships you mean Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union right? Joseph Stalin was a dictator alright.
Nuclear weapons and Hiroshima. Vietnam War. We are going through an historical event right now.
Future history books will remember this moment as a time of hardship and triumphant solidarity of humankind over evil.
Thorny stay safe, life long and prosper.
You too. Keep washing your hands and don’t go out unless you really need to!
True, 68 must have been devastating to live through
Markus,
They might not have had modern medicine, but social distancing and maths that support it go way back to biblical times. Check out leper colonies, Hawaii’s Molokai Island, for example.
Really, it’s not a surprise. STLV is likely to fall by the wayside this year, as well.
On to 2021.
I went to STLV last year for the first time and had a blast. I was planning to go again this year, but even if it’s not cancelled, I won’t be going.
I need to plan in advance for travel, lodging, and getting time off of work. That would normally need to be about now. It’s not a last-second decision.
Also, even if it goes ahead, it will be a far different and scaled-down event. A lot of people that need to travel any distance are simply not in a situation to commit to a tentative convention, so we will be absent. A lot of people also won’t be able to go since they will be in economic recovery and watching how they spend.
Creation probably won’t cancel it until it is forced to be cancelled by the Rio or higher level. If it’s like most contracts of this type, if Creation cancels the event on their own then the money put into it is lost. They would need to take advantage of a “force majeure” clause in the contract that says if the contract is cancelled by an outside entity then they would get funds back.
In any case, planning on 2021 if it happens.
Creation would be welcomed putting a smaller show on somewhere else,in the early Fall; if the pandemic allows and they have enough time to pull a bare bones event off. The first con of any kind that I ever attended was a two day Star Trek 20th Anniversary event at the Disneyland Hotel. It wasn’t even big enough to use the Anaheim Convention Center, which was much smaller back then. One panel room. One dealers room. A lot of fun.
I used to love going to the regional CreationCons when Berman-era Trek shows were on the air.
I think somethings been lost in rolling everything into STLV and DST.
STLV 2020 will likely be canceled this year. Given the high numbers of unemployed or experiencing job uncertainty will be a factor for the organizers of STLV. Even if it is planned for fall of 2020, most people going back to work will likely not have any time off or simply will not be able to afford it with risk of flying and being in a large gathering. Social distancing measures by State officials have yet to be established & implemented for large gatherings.
That does seem likely. I was hoping to go last year but the plans fell through. Thought about trying again this year and now it looks like it won’t happen.
STLV 2021 is a go. Not happening this year. The worst year ever.
2020 is the worst year ever in my entire lifetime. I’m 18 so I have the right to say that.
Yeah anyone born since the early 1970s can probably say that. Even most of us born in Canada after 1950 probably can say our generation has had it pretty good and easy. Listening to our parents and grandparents really let us know what hard times were like. AS FOR STLV, even if they hold the event, until there is a vaccine anyone over 40 or 50 OR anyone with a compromised immune system would probably not want to roll the dice with getting infected. Once a vaccine is available, then things can get back to normal.
Save us the trouble, Creation Entertainment, and just cancel Star Trek Las Vegas for 2020. It’s only inevitable anyway.
LIBERATE THE COMIC CON! -idiot protesters
albatrosity right those crazy people. The president spews out that rhetoric it’s nauseating. I’m stressed out right now. Unfit to be president.
I always wonder how Homer Simpson became president
Even if NV holds the event, until there is a vaccine – anyone over 50, living or wanting to visit anyone over 50 or someone with a compromised immune system would probably not want to roll the dice with getting infected or becoming a carrier. Once a vaccine is available, then things can get back to normal.