Coronavirus: Pro14 suspended indefinitely due to coronavirus

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/51858815

So the Pro14 for 2020 wont be completed ...

Guess the European tournaments (Champions and Challenge) will be next.

Already covered here with PRO14 statement.

https://www.606v2.com/t68886p400-pro-14-2019-2020-season#3895802

Yes, you did cover it there after I had posted this thread....check the posting times...

French rugby have suspended all competitions. That will almost certainly mean the Toulouse vs Ulster QF being postponed it seems.

Yep. The GAA has cancelled all games until after 29 March.

UK is now catching up with Soccer matches being cancelled by the Premier people

Even WRU has finally woken up to reality and cancelled the match against Scotland tomorrow.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/51898387

The Jeff due to be postponed as well. With Saracens already relegated and Falcons pretty much certain to come up they don't face the same issue that many leagues will with promotion/relegation though if games can't be re-scheduled.

My partner is an NHS Doctor based in the North East and the scale of the issue for them really puts things in perspective. Surgery theatres being turned into makeshift A&E, three stage plans when stage 2 is called 'War' and stage 3 'Armageddon'. Shortage of ventilators and lack of infrastructure to even hold enough Oxygen for patients (tanks are usually filled up every 4 day, will need to be filled daily over the next few months).

All specialist training, surgical exams and even annual leave potentially cancelled for the foreseeable future in a system that is already critically short staffed. That's before you consider the effect of NHS staff having to self isolate if infected.

NHS Scotland has already run out of face masks for staff. Doctors and nurses I know in Edinburgh and Glasgow say that NHS Scotland is actually in a better staffing situation than NHS England. The issue up here they worry will be large rural areas, struggling rural healthcare and of course pockets with aging populations. My parents have retired to Dumfries and Galloway for instance, a huge proportion of the residents there are retirees.

Interestingly one orthopedic surgeon I know in the private sector says that the crisis will lay bare the shortcomings of private medical care as well. I've heard a few people suggest that the government should fund patients being cared for in private facilities. The issue there of course being that private hospitals have practically no intensive care. As said surgeon put it, "the private sector takes care of elective surgery patients who don't want to sit on a waiting list for a hip replacement. The NHS takes care of sick people".

There are countries where football stadiums have been converted into morgues to cope with the amount of bodies. A practical decision when sports are cancelled anyway but for some reason this horrified me more than reading of numbers of potential dead. That image of a stadium full of bodies made it real and really frightening to me for the first time.