Facebook post from Freshman UI OL Brady Feeney's mom after he contracted COVID
Intense Facebook post here from Debbie Rucker, mother of Indiana freshman OL Brady Feeney. pic.twitter.com/Ula5lBQfO2
— Sam Blum (@SamBlum3) August 3, 2020
Seems like if there is a season we're going to have to get used to a lot of this kind of thing.
Fwiw, I don't agree with Blue. But, I feel like you're making his point.
- Football players will still be in their tiny dorms, apartments and shared housing with or without a football season.
- They will still have the student population running around like 18-22 year olds with or without a football season
- The football players will be in the thick of things acting like 18-22 year old college kids with or without a football season
- The football players are not in a bubble with or without a football season (though you could argue they'd behave more cautiously with a season to not miss playing time)
So, Blue's point is what difference does canceling the season make to the players? If you disagree with him as emphatically as your tone suggests, your reasons don't really make sense to me.
Obviously the #1 priority for canceling the season is the health and safety aspects. But taking away that, and focusing on the ''what is the difference?'' question...
I dont know... Maybe I'm just a little irritated that the powers that be still seem to think a season will be able to take place?! It's absolutely silly to think that they will be able to get through a season.
Are you cool with having a ''build the plane while it's flying'' type of season? I'm not. At this point... It needs to be canceled just because of... i don't know.. common sense?!
yeah, and neither is the general population they are interacting with. That's my point, they are not in a bubble and are going to be exposed to it anyways no matter if they are playing football or not.
So... common sense says that it is not going to work. So...
CANCEL.THE.DAMN.SEASON.
or you accept that people will get covid regardless and you take precautions to protect those who are high risk and get on with life.
I'm even not trying to approach this from the perspective of a fan who want's to see football. I know if I were a 20 year old player I would want to play, not to mention the money involved and the fact that it's just one more hit to our economy that is already reeling.
There it is. You are approaching things with a 20 year old athletes mentality. OF COURSE THEY WANT TO PLAY - until they see one of their 20 year old healthy teammates on a ventilator for 14 days.
I'm not even going to go into how many fat, out of shape, old coaches there are across college football. The ones that teams should be taking precautions to protect at all costs...
There is inherent risk in life and a 20 year old is going to me more risk adverse than many. I'm far from 20 but I know how important those types of things were to me at that age. They are adults too, who are we to tell them what their priorities should be?
That's not even getting to the economical impact that won't be affecting those 20 year old football players.
But this very thread is talking about a college level athlete who struggled mightily with the virus and was even hospitalized. In addition you're seeing cases involving heart issues, etc. that are likely tied to covid as well such as Eduardo Rodriguez of the Red Sox.
The simple answer is until we know more about what this does to your body, both short and long term, it's irresponsible to push them into locker rooms, practices, games for a sport they aren't even being paid to play.
If I go to a party and get COVID, that's personal responsibility, but when my school scholarship is incumbent upon my participation in a sport, there are exterior pressures forcing me into that situation.
I would be shocked if kids who opted out lost their scholarship.
Which is even more reason to not play. You're willfully ignorant if you can't see how much not playing the sport of football would reduce potential exposure. Willfully. Ignorant.
And that's the best case explanation for your "thoughts". The others are much worse.
And you are naive if you think these kids are taking necessary precautions outside of football.
I was just at the HS again and there were probably 200 kids on the field for marching band. So we moved to the middle school where there was a pickup game of football with 30 kids.
College football is the least of the worries when it comes to stopping the spread.
My daughter is a senior at Michigan. Her and her housemates are wearing masks whenever they're around other people, not eating at restaurants, and washing their hands like Howard Hughes after using a public bathroom.
So, yeah. Some people are taking all reasonable precautions, including college students.
August 3rd, 2020 at 10:12 PM ^
Hm. Why are they even around other people at all? I'm wondering how she decided that wearing a mask is a reasonable precaution, but isolating herself from others is not a reasonable precaution. Just because it's easier?
The WHO's guidance on masks specifically states that one danger of wearing masks is that people will start to ignore other safety measures such as isolation.
August 3rd, 2020 at 10:53 PM ^
Because they live in a house and not a fallout shelter? People have to eat, and in order to obtain food they must visit a store. They are otherwise avoiding people as much as possible.
Not sure what sort of alternative you're suggesting.
I use Instacart and haven't been in a grocery store since March, so...
August 3rd, 2020 at 11:23 PM ^
Summer semester is a lot different than Fall semester. Be curious to see how the general student population (not necessarily your daughter) handle it.
August 4th, 2020 at 12:09 AM ^
It's going to be one giant covid party.
Yep. You're missing the whole point on purpose, I'm convinced now. That's three posts in a row that you sidestep the biggest vector possible for them when put right in your face, directly. No, they probably won't all isolate themselves as well as some of us are doing. That's not the point, and you know it. They'll have the chance, and I'm sure some of them will take it seriously, including coaching and support staff who you also conveniently fail to address. Playing football takes away that chance for all involved.
August 3rd, 2020 at 11:21 PM ^
I did not address coaches and support staff because that is not what this thread or the original article was about. I actually think worrying about the coaches is a legitimate reason why they might consider cancelling the season. I think cancelling it because you are worried about students getting covid is a lot of hand wringing and a waste of time unless we are willing to completely shut down schools and campuses. Personally I think that would be a bad idea, but I understand that plenty of people feel differently. I should note that I do not have kids.
Of course if the support staff is staring down 4 months of unemployment with no end in sight, like some people in this country (me), then they might start reconsidering their risk threshold.
Kids are already getting pressured, blackballed for voicing concerns and thrown off teams. https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/2020/07/17/college-football-players-guinea-pigs-schools-covid-19-plans/5443267002/
August 3rd, 2020 at 10:04 PM ^
Damn either that was not the article I read earlier or they edited out several of the quotes from student-athletes who were getting flak from coaches. It was something out of a movie what they were experiencing.
I think that at a minimum, it raises the bar for expectations on medically clearing Covid positive athletes to practice after they test negative.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck....
I hope the young man recovers and leads a long, healthy life...
fuck fuck fuck FUUUCCKKKK
I’m openly rooting for the season to be canceled.
I think most of us are at this point.
As an aside, one of the (many) horrible takes I've seen is how people are accusing sports journalists of cheerleading the notion to cancel the football season. Like, holy fucking balls, having a football season is tied to at least 95% of reporters' jobs and livelihood - why on God's green earth would they seriously want any of this? Nobody wants there to not be a season but shit's gotten... no, has BEEN serious, for several months. The anti-media pogrom has seriously gotten way out of hand in some quarters.
I'm rooting for a miracle - a cure found from amongst pre-existing meds followed closely by a preventative vaccine. The long term health info posted above is pretty scary/sobering info, though, so yeah, shutdown seems the most responsible and logical path at this point.
There are only two ways for sports to operate under relative safety.
1. Get the virus under control - this means significant change in state and federal policies. It hasn’t happened in 5 months, doubt it happens now.
2. Bubble Model - athletes and coaches and other personnel isolate in chosen areas and are essentially under quarantine. Frequent testing.
College and high school athletics can’t afford to do a bubble. And the first isn’t happening. So no sports. Sucks for athletes and fans alike but we can really only blame our leaders for failing.
Yeah I don't see it. Even today, the President of the United States of America is actively misleading anyone who will listen, about Covid-19. We aren't going to beat this, in any way. And yet, 41%...
Major League Baseball can't even get things right - and those guys are millionaires staying in swanky hotels. But somehow, the leaders of our university and the B1G/NCAA think that college sports will still be good to go in the fall. WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK?
This is why I don't think there will be a season. That makes me sad, but I think it's inevitable. I just don't think programs can keep these kids safe, even when they "do everything right" in terms of testing, protocols, etc.
I hope the young man recovers fully!
I'm not trying to be cynical or an "I told you so" type, but I've been saying for a while that a full season isn't going to happen, with a 50/50 chance they try anything at all, and it's because of stuff like this. For some people it isn't just a flu, it isn't just a bad cold. Yes, for some it doesn't impact them at all (or is very mild), which very possibly is a large portion of the population, but for some reason it can and does impact seemingly very healthy people to an extent you wouldn't expect it to. We don't fully know why yet, but it does, and we cannot just dismiss this thing as a nothing-burger.
That's a rough thing to read... and it could've been much, much worse even.
... not likely to be college sports this year (and maybe more beyond that).
I hope for the best for this young man.
The data would say his ER experience is very much an outlier. But even at low probabilities it's something that every player and parent must consider.
The data coming out on long term effects has to be run to ground immediately. Put football aside, if some of the alarming results so far prove true, then the country must move from flatten the curve to prevent as many infections as possible. This is new info, and there seems to be enough there to stop everything and find the answer. It would represent a failure of epic proportions for the CDC, WHO, USG, Fauci, et al, to have significant long term effects pass under their noses.
I'm sure it's on all those organizations' and individuals' radars, but it's tricky to determine long-term causation quickly. Tough work for everyone involved.
Agree it is very difficult, but this new data on long term effects is potentially so significant that it has to be messaged broadly, and worldwide. The fact that it has not, at least not yet, gives me pause as to how reliable it can yet be.
Basically there's a distribution that pretty much everyone agrees with, where your risk at these ages is such and such, and your risk at these other is such and such, and if you have comorbidities at any age you're high risk (and obviously if elderly with comordities at massive risk). The debate has said, basically, for those 18 and younger, it's less risky than seasonal flu; those 19-XX it's worse or much worse (though still very small on a percentage basis given the risk of seasonal flu is so small on a percentage basis), then as you go toward 55 it's elevated, and after that you're at much, much higher risk. Individual views have reasonably fallen along the spectrum from "even one death is too many" to "I'd rather risk it than live this way".
Now we're saying that underlying that distribution is a secondary effect that may affect some % of those who've had COVD. That is a massive new piece of info, and if this was a reasonable conclusion to draw based on evidence, they should have had something on this at least a couple of months ago. I don't think that's too much to ask.
Possible long-term or permanent complications due to COVID is not new. You really couldn't even mention Trump among those, huh?
You consider him to be a health / infectious disease expert?
He certainly considers himself one
Must have assembled a Coronavirus Task Force of health / infectious disease experts to boss them around for fun.
I've felt as though his task force was as much a side show or window dressing as anything. Is he listening to them? Sometimes, sure. But he clearly prefers to keep his own counsel, and not just on this subject - all of them, it seems.
August 3rd, 2020 at 11:07 PM ^
His own counsel, huh? You mean, Vice President Mike Pence who is leading the Task Force managing the federal response to the pandemic? Buck stops with the Commander and Chief but Pence and the Task Force are the ones guiding the federal response.
August 3rd, 2020 at 11:18 PM ^
Vice President Mike Pence, the person who was quoted in 2000 saying "smoking doesn't kill?" The one who, in 2002 on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, delivered a speech that repudiated the Theory of Evolution? The one who, in the same speech, said the Biblical creation story should be taught alongside Darwin's theory?
That Mike Pence?
August 3rd, 2020 at 11:49 PM ^
Don't forget the guy who thought his personal understanding of religious doctrine was of more import than science and therefor enacted policies that lead directly to an HIV outbreak in Indiana.
And for fun, the current Surgeon General of the United States was the Health Commissioner in Indiana who helped him do it all.
August 4th, 2020 at 12:38 AM ^
Had to research this too and until now, I never knew there were such things as needle exchange programs.
August 4th, 2020 at 12:14 AM ^
That's the guy and as someone who paid tens of thousands of dollars to study evolutionary theory, I'm not offended that most people aren't convinced by the evidence we have to consider. I had to research "smoking doesn't kill," and he did say that, but if you're going to pull the sound bite, at least give the full context. Right after, he goes on to say that smoking isn't good for you and you should quit. He was referencing whatever BS stats he had at the time. Probably a study funded by big Tobacco. Point he was making is that smoking increases your risk of lung cancer, heart disease, etc. but that it's not an absolute. Stupid argument to fall on your sword for, but it's also true. Exposure to harmful toxins increases the likelihood of illness (sometimes strongly), but it's not a guarantee. Local, state and federal health departments operate under the assumption that exposure to hazardous substances at concentrations higher than zero is acceptable. The numbers are conservative though. 1;100,000 risk or 1;1,000,000 risk.
August 3rd, 2020 at 10:27 PM ^
Um, yeah
Data has been out there for months on long term effects of Covid-19 of "Covid long-haulers" if you had any interest at all in looking at reliable news sources.
Nonsense. The discussion has been deaths and hospitalizations. Have there been offshoots of that central argument? Of course. Like Kawasaki syndrome, which fairly disappeared into little concern. You can pretend that this was part of the argument all along and make some childish point about your biased news sources vs. the other team's biased news sources, but it's nonsense.
CDC, WHO, USG, Fauci - none of them have made this a central point of the debate. Is that because they've looked at it and don't believe - yet - that it's a real concern? If they believe long term effects are as serious as some of the studies suggest, they should all be halting everything and changing the strategy from flatten the curve to flatten all infections. They have not done so, have not remotely broached it.
Remember the TV commercial where the USG, Fauci, that other lady - they all say hey, you may not really be at risk, but we have to do our part so the the more vulnerable among us aren't infected? That's what they did - that was their message. If they believe these studies have merit, they need to get right back on TV and say Hey, there's new data and we need to change our plan immediately.
My view is that in the absence of long term effects, this football player's experience is very much an outlier. The data has proven - to me - that people his age are at little risk.
Now if we introduce new evidence to suggest some substantial % of those infected risk long term health effects? Then it changes everything. But that's new data, don't pretend it was part of the national debate all along.
The first confirmed death outside of China didn’t occur until February 2nd. So basically 6 months ago, is it really that shocking that there us much that we don’t know and that we are just starting to get a grip on the long term impacts? In the US, we didn’t begin to have substantial numbers of people who’d recovered until mid to late April. Since you can’t really begin looking for long term impacts immediately, studies of that nature couldn’t really begin until May, so at best we’ve had three months to look at long term impacts. It really isn’t surprising that we are just starting to see more information come out.