apaladin wrote: ↑Sun Aug 02, 2020 12:29 pm
Furmanoid wrote: ↑Sun Aug 02, 2020 12:05 pm
In the spring people were dying like crazy in NYC and Gov. Cuomo said he needed 40,000 ventilators that didn’t exist. We thought you could catch Covid from contaminated surfaces. We thought it would kill children and young people like the Spanish flu. We thought it was much, much more deadly than it is turning out to be everywhere but the northeast. We had even fewer treatments than now (although one promising treatment is banned in many states).
We are in a different place now. Yes we have high new case numbers partly because we test like crazy. We now know that not only do most people have mild cases, but they don’t even notice symptoms. We choose to worry about asymptomatic spread, but the WHO experts let it slip that there is no evidence this is happening to any large degree. We are are exporting unneeded ventilators. Death rates are dropping. And there IS sign of letup. Even the press is now reporting that the virus has peaked in the south (probably a week or two ago). SC’s ICU and ventilator numbers have dropped about 10% since about Wednesday. There is still a really bad county in FL and there are a couple in TX but things appear to be getting better.
If we have college football, who will be the safest people on campus? Players will be because they will spend most of their time surrounded by people who are tested for Covid every week, and much of that time will be outside. The only way they can get it through football is via mechanisms the experts says are unlikely to spread it. So playing isn’t crazy at all. If you shut it down, you increase their risk to that of the average student.
Excellent post. Of course the fixation on “cases” will keep the hysteria going until basketball season, before the media starts letting up. It’s just like MLB overreacting by cancelling games when someone tests positive, The Marlins proved the likelihood of spreading it to another team is zero. If they are going to play they need to play thru “cases”. If not they may as well close it down.
Let's pull this apart for a moment.
- Baseball is a different game. It is comparatively low contact to football. Most players are "socially distanced" the entire game. There could be 50 yards between you and the next closest player. Football, as you know, is the complete opposite. There's hardly six feet of separation between you and any player, and if there is, it is only momentary.
- Baseball rosters have somewhere between 26-30 players. Furman's roster alone is probably over 100 players. So, that potential exposure rate is potentially 4 times higher.
- Most of the spread from the major league teams are from their own teammates not strictly following guidelines. Ok, sure, enforce guidelines. We are still back to relying on 18-22 year olds (an age group currently responsible for much of the spread nationally) and telling them to quarantine while in college. Good luck on that. It isn't impossible, it is improbable.
- Professional athletes are not "on campus" like college athletes are. They aren't mixed in with thousands of other students. They aren't engaging with older faculty and staff. Furman has one dining hall. They do not have segregated athletic dorms like larger universities. How exactly do you propose to avoid spread between the athletes and the student body generally?
- It isn't just about "cases." While the death rate is relevant, the reality is we know very little about this virus and almost nothing about the long term effects. There is a professional baseball player right now (Eduardo Rodriguez) who has developed a heart condition from COVID.
- Professional athletes have "opt out" provisions where they can just choose to sit out the season. There is no such protection for college athletes.
- Up until a few days ago, it was widely thought that the virus was unlikely to be transmitted by children. Just this week, there is a report of a YMCA camp in North Georgia having nearly 300 positive cases, many of whom were kids. So, what everyone assumed was accurate just days ago, has turned out to not be so accurate. Ihttps://
www.ajc.com/news/coronavirus/260-corona ... 3JOPUAVSY/
- If anyone tells you they can predict the future related to this virus, they are either full of crap or trying to sell you something.
- And by the way, the summer was when this virus was supposed to be at it's least damaging under the theory that viral infections are more susceptible to heat. Winter is coming. Who is to say that what we saw in New York in March isn't going to show back up in October and November?
