But the thing that makes F1 actually somewhat unique in terms of Coronavirus risk, is that it’s supposed to take place across 22 countries (down to 21 now that China’s been cancelled - or “postponed”). Including a number of countries that have high infection rates, like Italy, Singapore and Japan. An F1 team member could theoretically be infected in one country, go to a race in another country, leave and arrive in a 3rd country before they even show symptoms.

So far what the FIA has done is cancel China, prohibit driver > fan interaction at events, limit press interaction, and said that some races will be run without live audiences. They’ve also said that if a team can’t race because of the virus, they won’t hold an official GP, but they kinda implied they’d still hold a race.

I’m a big fan of F1, so I’m happy to see the races. But it seems like a disaster waiting to happen. The FIA also have a terrible history of not cancelling events when they really should be cancelled. Last year when Typhoon Hagibis was forecast to arrive onshore in Japan on the Saturday of the Japanese GP weekend, the FIAs plan was “we think Typhoon Hagibis will be gone by Sunday, so we’ll just run qualifying on Sunday morning”. It did clear up by then, but really just by luck. In 2005 the circuit for the US GP had a corner that was dangerous to take at speed for any car that was using Michelin tires, because they may catastrophically fail. This caused two major crashes during practice. The FIA refused to change the track, refused to cancel the race, and refused to allow the teams to withdraw. The result was that the (7/10) Michelin teams drove one formation lap, and then had all 14 of their drivers retire. In short, they can’t really be trusted to make defensible decisions about cancelling events.