Ham Radio and Coronavirus – hardly a peep?

WIth the W8S Swains Island DXPedition pushed out to fall in response to the Coronavirus precautionary quarantine (See Jeff KE9V’s write up at https://ke9v.net/2020/02/23/due-to-pandemic/ ) what else are you hearing about the Coronavirus of substance on the Ham bands?

I had hams email me if I was aware of any Coronavirus response frequencies being used. They had read my prior postings: https://k9zw.wordpress.com/2020/02/17/lets-talk-on-the-radio-but-perhaps-put-off-eyeball-qsos-for-a-bit-a-hams-response-to-the-coronavirus/ and https://k9zw.wordpress.com/2020/01/31/infections-like-coronavirus-and-ham-radio/ and I had to tell them I had heard of no special frequencies in use.

What might be the cause for this?

I’m thinking the reasons that we hear little on the Ham bands are several:

• When people are that sick they are not going to be on the radio
• Some hams are involved in other response aspects and are busy
• The response is “not that sort of response” being slower methodical response than a ham-ready “action based response”
• Normal means of communicating are all intact
• Most of us have no direct access to new first hand information worth sharing
• Specific patient information has HIPPA aspects in play
• In some locations speaking out about what is actually happening is discouraged/forbidden

Now you can hear some folk talking about their pet theory, but that is the entertainment side of ham radio and far from serious information transfer.

As I wrote in a comment to Jeff KE9V’s article “Personally I have scrubbed my 2020 Dayton Hamvention plans and I’ve been encouraging the expo team for a trade association convention later this year to make sure they have a viable “travel-less convention” option as their Plan-B fallback.”  But neither plan required any serious on -air bandwidth.

What have you heard?

73

Steve
K9ZW