Letter from Dr. Hub Brennan

Stu Preston
President
New England Trials Association
72 Mountain Road
South Berwick, ME 03908

Dear Stu,

Thanks for your query regarding the anticipated course of the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic as you deliberate a return to NETA activities.

As you and the membership are aware, this global viral pandemic is unprecedented. To date, the virus has infected 112 million people worldwide and has claimed 2.5 million lives. Here in the United States, over 500,000 lives have been lost.

Unfortunately, there has been considerable misinformation and general misunderstanding of the facts about COVID which could frustrate decisions such as yours. Having devoted my professional time in recent months to the fight against COVID, I wish to reinforce the absolute fact that this is a highly contagions and deadly virus.

We have three things that help us avoid transmitting, becoming ill and dying from the virus. They include social distancing, proper masks and vaccinations. Any social activity that doesn’t include these elements will contribute to ongoing illness and death.

Your concern regarding when a safe return to NETA events might be expected is to be applauded. You make no assumptions and that is the only safe and responsible approach to take. There are any number of observations and opinions both for and against resuming events. As NETA President, you are undoubtedly hearing many of them.

We will invite risk by gathering for large scale social and leisure events too soon. It would be wise to wait until a majority of the population is immunized. At our projected rate of vaccine production and administration, barring any setbacks, we anticipate having enough vaccine out to reach heard immunity by mid summer ’21.

Hence, I suggest that you might look at the first week of July as a possibility for safely resuming an event schedule.

Stay safe,

Dr. Hub Brennan
NETA# 33
AMA Board of Directors, Medical Commission and Trials Commission Member
AMA Safe to Race Taskforce contributing author
FIM Medical Commission Member and Chief Medical Officer