The vulnerable category being allowed out before time and before the Government’s own Covid Alert level has been dropped to the relevant level to allow it.

Be back at the HJ before we know it at this rate.

I think the August start date might be more due to Sky TV dictating that with PL football getting blanket TV coverage in June & July, they'd not be willing/able to make any room in their broadcast schedule for RL until August.

The August restart is to allow clubs to take maximum advantage of furlough scheme which tapers at end of July and to avoid direct competition with soccer

Correct.

Also if we start in August Sky will pay their full installment of 2020 TV monies, although I believe in 2021 clubs will receive £300k less (which explains some clubs wanting to drop the cap next year) .

The August start point is deemed the best mix between getting the benefit of Furlough, guaranteeing 2020 Sky income and having the possibility of supporters at the back end of the season. I would also suggest rugby leaque players will need some form of mini preseason to prepare them for the rest of the year which would also explain a later start than some other sports - the 'flexi-furlough' may help with this.

Surely basing the choice of start date on these factors is missing the big factor which is risk of coronavirus at the time we reopen. We locked down in a week when there were 500 deaths in the week across the UK due to coronavirus, but 2 weeks ago (the most recent data) there were 2,500 deaths in the week, and this was after two months of lockdown. As other things start to open up again you would expect the virus to start circulating more so we will still be faced with the same situation: will it be safe for fans to turn up? How do players train effectively with social distancing and what happens if someone in a squad gets coronavirus and it starts to circulate through a team. Will teams be penalised with points if they are unable to fulfil fixtures due to squad members sick or isolating?

Playing rugby league doesn't seem like a sensible thing to do when there's a risk of a serious highly contagious disease and there are a lot of carriers who don't show symptoms. Players will be put at risk of catching it and spreading it to their families, we also don't yet know enough about the long term effects. Already there are lots of people who were infected in March who are showing chronic symptoms and suffering severe fatigue, blood clots. For some players, even if their risk of death is low, getting it could put them out of action for an extended period of time, it could be the equivalent of a broken leg or torn ACL etc.

I think there's a lot of "wishing the virus away" going on.