Simon Beattie, a keen racegoer from Wolverhampton, patted the bronze statue of the old Cheltenham Festival favourite Best Mate – then immediately turned to disinfect his hands at one of the sanitiser stations that had materialised at the racecourse overnight.
“It’s fair enough,” said Beattie. “You don’t have to go over the top but it is sensible to take every precaution you can with this coronavirus thing around. Thousands of people must have touched that statue before me.”
The Cheltenham Festival is generally a respite from daily worries. Every March, whether the course is bathed in gentle early spring sunshine or battered by rain and wind, race fans descend on Gloucestershire to immerse themselves in an equine Olympics.
Royals and aristocrats rub shoulders with reality TV stars, City types, farmers, gamblers and drinkers out to sink as many pints of Guinness and glasses of champagne as possible.
This year, however, there is a slightly different feel. Last-minute ticket sales have not been strong and some people have asked for refunds because of the outbreak. There was concern the event might not be the spectacle it usually is.
However, when the gates opened at 10.30am on Tuesday, the tweed outfits, the sharp suits and extravagant hats piled in as ever. A bunch of young men from Nottingham sported face masks – but said it was “for the banter”. By the time the first race had begun at 1.30pm, tens of thousands of people lined the course and the roar that greeted the first winner seemed just as loud as ever.
It was a huge relief for the bookies. Ian Shepherd said if it did not have a healthy Cheltenham his Devon bookmakers would have a difficult year. “It’s massively important for us,” he said.
Conscious that banknotes and coins could be carriers of the virus, Shepherd had made sure he had sanitiser to hand. “I’ll also pop over to the gents every so often,” he said.
The organiser of the festival, the Jockey Club, has introduced a raft of measures to try to keep coronavirus at bay, including setting up the disinfectant boards.
By noon, Neill Handley, from Ealing, west London, had used them three times – and been taken by how much frantic hand-washing was going on in the toilets. “Usually you don’t see that – half the men don’t wash their hands at all,” he said.
At the mobile pharmacy, James Powell was rapidly running out of bottles of hand-sanitiser – the last of his stock. “If I could source 10,000 of them, I would have,” he said. “But I only started with 150 and they’ve almost gone.”
After customers touched his counter he disinfected it but he is relieved that the races are on. “It would have been difficult for me if this had been cancelled,” he said. He is due to go on to the Grand National at Aintree, near Liverpool, next month and to a string of other race meetings and music events. “The worry is that they will be called off,” he said.
In the meantime, the Cheltenham bars, restaurants and the shopping village were doing well.
Clare Alban-Moore, the founder of the luxury brand Scarlett Woods, was running out of gloves. “I don’t know if it’s because of coronavirus or because they are fabulous,” she said.
Cathy Boyd , of Gloucestershire accessories brand BHOID, was giving customers a squirt of cleansing foam if they wanted. “We’re very glad the festival has gone on,” she said. “It’s vital for us and for so many businesses around here.”
The event is worth £100m to the local economy. A record-breaking 266,000 people attended the four-day festival last year.
Inevitably, a huge number of people are jammed together not only at the course but on the way to it. Last year, more than 130,000 people used Cheltenham Spa train station over the four days and 80,000 travelled in the shuttle bus service between the town centre and racecourse. Fifty staff coaches a day from as far afield as London, Swansea and Coventry converge on the site.
What is Covid-19 - the illness that started in Wuhan?
It is caused by a member of the coronavirus family that has never been encountered before. Like other coronaviruses, it has come from animals.
What are the symptoms this coronavirus causes?
The virus can cause pneumonia. Those who have fallen ill are reported to suffer coughs, fever and breathing difficulties. In severe cases there can be organ failure. As this is viral pneumonia, antibiotics are of no use. The antiviral drugs we have against flu will not work. Recovery depends on the strength of the immune system. Many of those who have died were already in poor health.
Should I go to the doctor if I have a cough?
In the UK, the medical advice is that if you have recently travelled from areas affected by coronavirus, you should:
- stay indoors and avoid contact with other people as you would with the flu
- call NHS 111 to inform them of your recent travel to the area
More NHS advice on what to do if you think you have been exposed to the virus can be found here, and the full travel advice to UK nationals is available here.
Is the virus being transmitted from one person to another?
China’s national health commission confirmed human-to-human transmission in January, and there have been such transmissions elsewhere.
How many people have been affected?
As of 9 March, more than 110,000 people have been infected in more than 80 countries, according to the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
There have over 3,800 deaths globally. Just over 3,000 of those deaths have occurred in mainland China. 62,000 people have recovered from the coronavirus.
Why is this worse than normal influenza, and how worried are the experts?
We don’t yet know how dangerous the new coronavirus is, and we won’t know until more data comes in. Seasonal flu typically has a mortality rate below 1% and is thought to cause about 400,000 deaths each year globally. Sars had a death rate of more than 10%.
Another key unknown is how contagious the coronavirus is. A crucial difference is that unlike flu, there is no vaccine for the new coronavirus, which means it is more difficult for vulnerable members of the population – elderly people or those with existing respiratory or immune problems – to protect themselves. Hand-washing and avoiding other people if you feel unwell are important. One sensible step is to get the flu vaccine, which will reduce the burden on health services if the outbreak turns into a wider epidemic.
Have there been other coronaviruses?
Severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) and Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome (Mers) are both caused by coronaviruses that came from animals. In 2002, Sars spread virtually unchecked to 37 countries, causing global panic, infecting more than 8,000 people and killing more than 750. Mers appears to be less easily passed from human to human, but has greater lethality, killing 35% of about 2,500 people who have been infected.
There have been three cases of coronavirus in Gloucestershire, including one in the Cheltenham area.
Measures have been put in place to quickly remove anybody from the racecourse who is suspected of coming down with the virus during the event. Teams of paramedics and St John Ambulance workers patrolled the grounds.
Ian Renton, a regional director for the Jockey Club, said the organisers had been liaising closely with government over the last fortnight.
Asked if it would have been wiser to call off the event, Renton said: “We have to listen to the advice of the government. We shouldn’t be making our own decisions on this. We will put everything in place for racegoers to make sure precautions are here.”
There was no sign that the number of Irish visitors had dropped off significantly. Thirty extra flights are put on by Ryanair on the Dublin to Birmingham route during the festival.
“We come every year, said Dubliner Jim Gray. “We wouldn’t miss it for the world, virus or no virus. We reckon if we keep drinking the Guinness and washing our hands, it’ll all be grand.”
