I'm guessing the premise may be that 12 less games at the start of the season with no fans is 12 more games later on with fans. There's an obvious financial benefit to that even if they have to be squeezed in midweek. We also don't know whether this will be the last delay. Maybe they will gradually push it back as far as they can until either fans are back or they have to play in order to get all the games in before the WC (if that even happens this year). If the WC does get cancelled then they'll have scope to push it back even further, thus increasing the amount of games that will ultimately be played in front of fans.

Can Rugby League afford to do the mass testing that the premier league are doing?

Footballers and their close family also live different lives to Rugby League players given their wealth so can probably stick to bubbles more and are therefore lower risk, as shown in the numbers.

they going to base Catalans in the UK?

At who's expense? Seriously doubt it.

I dont know, they cant be in 10 day quarantine before every game though, same happened in the NRL with NZW then the storm

We also have to factor in the French Governments response to Covid. They have already effectively put an end to international RU club rugby.

Going by today's projections of vaccine delivery a SL start date of 25th March could well see crowds returning to games.
The Gov't say they are proposing to have the top four vulnerable group vaccinated by mid February. Other vulnerable groups by mid March.
You'd hope by then the number of hospital admissions of Covid patients will have dropped off substantially.
If all that happens as everyone wants it to happen then there is no reason why crowds could not be allowed back.
I do hope so.

How SL handle the fixtures matters less to me as I just want to get back watching rugby.
They'll probably drop the Magic weekend but most of the rest will go ahead I think. They could go back to two games at Easter and everything else could fit in then if they drop Magic.

With the pressure the Gov't is under from their own MPs to get the economy going then getting crowds into grounds could be a good indicator of their intentions.

That's the west stand sorted then.

Hopefully the vaccine will eventually lead to very small death figures but I personally would be concerned if the government fully relaxed restrictions on that measure alone. We need to reduce transmission as well or we're in a state of perennial vulnerability from mutations, long Covid, vaccine protection expiring, fear in the community etc.

It feels a little silly to discuss this purely in the context of rugby league as its having such a huge impact in all aspects of life. But in terms of the World Cup, I don't think it will go ahead without numbers of both deaths and cases reducing to negligible levels.

Drop the loop fixtures and just play the basic 22 home and away league games and Challenge Cup games which I understand will this year be only play by the profesional clubs.

That should be sufficient in what will be another year of turmoil, especially with a World Cup near the end of the year.