Disclaimer: Not a single member of MUN01 is a health professional. You know us. We’ve either just graduated college or we’re still there. And we’re definitely not studying medicine. Please do not take any of this as something other than just our thoughts about Coronavirus and its current and potential impact on the circuit. We are not qualified to make any health-related recommendations, we are only barely qualified to run a Model UN podcast.
As COVID-19/Coronavirus sweeps through the globe, most people are either experiencing or anticipating disruption to everyday life. I know that my mind has been especially focused on how this outbreak will affect the Model UN circuit. Not only are Model UN conferences a large gathering of people, they usually bring together students from all around the country and world. As more schools close, universities go online, and quarantines become more common, many delegates have been concerned about how Model UN will factor into all of this.
Please note that these statistics were collected in a period of 24 hours starting the afternoon of March 10th. Many more cancellations and travel schedule alterations have occurred since this time.
When our Instagram followers were polled, 81% responded that they were concerned that their team’s travel schedule would be affected by the coronavirus. And these worries were substantiated. 47% of responding delegates answered that their travel schedule had already been impacted.
58% of respondents voted that spring conferences should consider delaying or cancelling their conferences due to the Coronavirus outbreak. Notable conferences on the collegiate schedule that have already cancelled or significantly delayed their conferences include WorldMUN Tokyo, PUNC, VICS, and ChoMUN. Delegates can access our full list of cancelled conferences here. The list contains both high school and collegiate conferences around the world. To add a cancelled conference to the list, please email mun01.business@gmail.com or DM us the information at @mun01podcast on Instagram.
All of this considered, it should be expected that even more teams and conferences see disruptions or cancellations to their schedule. These questions were asked just as some schools and colleges have closed or restricted schedules which may increase in the coming days and weeks.
Many delegates were concerned with how these cancellations will factor into Best Delegate’s 2019-2020 season rankings. As previously stated, many ranked collegiate conferences have either cancelled or indefinitely delayed this year’s iteration and confusion is resulting in if rankings will occur and how this would impact them. Some delegates assume that the rankings will count the conferences that have occured, but nothing’s for certain as of now. MUN01 has reached out to Best Delegate for a comment and will update this post if more information is received.
In closing, we would like to share a few of our favorite responses to our story asking about additional comments and thoughts:
- “NYU’s CDC committee gonna be lit if the conferneces [sic] is still on lol”
- “I swear I’ll die if they cancel punc”
- “I am honestly prepared for the Coronavirus WHO committees”
We’d like to wish the best to all of our listeners and remind everyone to wash their hands and stay healthy! Check up on your family and friends, be there for each other during this time, and we’ll all get through it together.
MUN01 