OT: Fauci says sports can probably proceed without spectators (for summer)
Per ESPN
Take that, doomers. It's not what we all prefer, but it's far from the worst case scenario if it comes to pass.
I'll be very sad if I can't see a game at Michigan Stadium, Comerica Park or Lambeau Field this fall but I will take getting drunk in the mancave over the nothingness that is our current situation.
Now remove the stick from Newsome's ass.
And what happens when an athlete tests positive? It seems like almost a certainty.
April 15th, 2020 at 10:14 AM ^
C19 isn’t a death sentence, certainly not for a college athlete. My guess is in this hypothetical world where we are willing to risk positive tests and incremental deaths for individual freedoms, personal joy, and economic activity (note that we have lived in this world for centuries) an athlete with a positive test would be put in sort of a “Covid protocol” where they receive the necessary medical treatments and that player’s activity and contact with others is restricted until they are no longer deemed contagious. This may be something that athletes/coaches/universities/NCAA are willing to do, it might not.
On a very hypothetical note, as we learn more about immunity of this disease, it may actually be advantageous for teams to get more exposure early in order to avoid absences of key players during critical stretches. Will be interesting to see how this all plays out.
April 15th, 2020 at 10:25 AM ^
I agree with this. The protocol you mentioned would have to be extended to every teammate of the infected individual until they are confirmed negative. Also with the incubation periods being so long, that means any and all opponents that played against the infected individual and their team in the past 2 weeks would also have to go through some sort of protocol. I can see it becoming just a massive clusterfuck where teams may refuse to play.
April 15th, 2020 at 10:40 AM ^
If one athlete tests positive in football, that means that an entire two teams could get C19 based on how much spit and sweat and touching goes on. I guess it’s okay for fans to say that 19-23 year olds should risk getting sick and having possible permanent lung damage past recovery so that fans can be entertained.
If an entire Naval ship is testing positive and at least one has one died—you’re talking about a young, healthy active set of folks in which even one death or ICU victim is senseless.
Unless entire teams are quarantined together to verify no one has it.
Unless there’s more accurate and fast tests that both those who have or had it.
Unless this disease “goes dormant” until later winter.
Unless the vaccine is approved for use faster
—it’s very stupid to risk lives just so fans can be entertained. Every single one of us wants to have normalcy, but not one of us should be rationalizing the safety of other people by pretending that 18-23 year olds have some kind of super protection spell from possible hospitalization or death.
For every one person out there who is being overly idealistic about nothing bad happening to these young men, there is one other person in America whose pragmatism is caution against even one life ending.
April 15th, 2020 at 10:55 AM ^
I do understand your points, I think there is a degree of reason to a lot of the things you’re saying. I also think some of the comments are a bit extreme or even inconsistent with respect to what athletes have done pre-C19.
“I guess it’s okay for fans to say that 19-23 year olds should risk getting sick and having possible permanent lung damage past recovery so that fans can be entertained” - fans cannot compel athletes to compete. No one is suggesting that. Whether or not an athlete chooses to participate under this hypothetical future would be a personal choice that comes down to risk management and personal values. Just like someone possibly going to school bc they weigh the educational opportunity more strongly than the risk of the disease, or someone taking a job with a higher contact risk profile bc they weigh the possible monetary/prosperity above their infection/outcome risk. As far as I know people still can make decisions for themselves, including athletes.
“it’s very stupid to risk lives just so fans can be entertained. Every single one of us wants to have normalcy, but not one of us should be rationalizing the safety of other people by pretending that 18-23 year olds have some kind of super protection spell from possible hospitalization or death.” - isn’t this how it has always been? C19 certainly changes the risk profile, but concussions, spinal injuries, infectious disease risk, transportation accidents, etc. have always been around yet athlete continue to choose to participate. It’s interesting that all of a sudden zero risk is tolerated, when we have tolerated so much in the past.
April 15th, 2020 at 12:47 PM ^
Nobody is compelling players to do anything (except for you when you compel them to stay at home and waste away their last years of eligibility and chance at making the NFL). If players choose not to accept risk, they can stay home and wait for a vaccine.
Football already has a lot of inherent risks: concussions, fractures, ligament tears, etc. My guess is most players would gladly risk contracting a cough for a week if it meant they could play football again.
April 15th, 2020 at 11:07 AM ^
Someone tests positive -- do you quarantine the entire team? Presumably they are still sharing somewhat close quarters with each other, and as of now the best testing we have would probably not show positive results for an infected player's teammates for several days. Does a quarantined team need to forfeit upcoming games? Depending on the sport, do recent opponents need to be quarantined? Linemen in football and bigs in basketball would both seem to be at an elevated risk of "close contact" relative to their teammates. What do you do with players who may be at higher risk, due to asthma, diabetes, any other conditions (especially considering that our understanding of risk factors is still emerging)?
Then there are other issues with player safety. If hospitals are still operating at or near peak capacity, what do you do with injured players? Can they get "elective" surgeries to repair broken bones and torn ligaments, which are a known outcome of sport? What about concussions? Is it a good thing for public health to shift resources from treating pandemic patients towards repairing athletes? If not, will players and leagues properly evaluate that risk?
Maybe some tennis and golf tournaments could resume with some altered procedures. It's tough for me to see it working for team sports, even relatively non-contact ones like baseball.
April 15th, 2020 at 10:14 AM ^
14 days in the penalty box.
April 15th, 2020 at 10:26 AM ^
There are going to be people testing positive for this for a long time. We can’t just shut everything down every time someone tests positive. “Stay at home” was to slow the spread and buy time. There are a lot of people who can’t just stay at home for this long. Now it’s time for states to get there shit in order for increased test and trace and start giving plans for incremental reopening sometime in May.
April 15th, 2020 at 11:03 AM ^
I agree with all of this. I didn’t mean to imply that it SHOULD shut down when an athlete inevitably tests positive. Keeping things going largely relies on strict testing as you mentioned. I’m just really cynical about things like this.
April 15th, 2020 at 10:28 AM ^
It would be EXACTLY like getting sick today. The hysteria is out of control. It's ridiculous to take what is more common (but still not majority) to happen to someone over 80 and apply it to 20 year old men.
April 15th, 2020 at 11:41 AM ^
College Football has plenty of coaches, support staff, equipment managers, referees, and so forth that are in that high risk 60+ age group. What do you do about them?
Also, do you have to have kids on campus and in dorms to have college sports? There has to be a chance that colleges are still doing online classes in the fall. Michigan bringing people in from all over the world and sticking them in dorms seems just as bad of an idea as having football crowds. Of course you could say that students are young and low risk, but then you have to worry about all the high risk older staff and faculty.
I don't have an answer to the problem, but I have no issue seeing things from both sides. I'm just glad I'm 35 and healthy, and not 70 and fearing for my life.
April 15th, 2020 at 12:01 PM ^
Yes agreed - I meant to add this to my post above. I think the harder thing to manage than the athletes’ health will be how to prevent these activities from risking/ increasing unsustainable public spread. That needs to be sorted out first in my opinion.
Seems more feasible for pro sports. They only have so many players and people to worry about.
Still not certain about college sports in the fall. Way more athletes to worry about.
I agree. It’s reasonable to ask someone you’re paying millions of dollars to self quarantine for an entire season, but that’s not going to happen for college kids. Without the team in isolation, it’s just a matter of time until a player gets sick and tanks a whole team.
April 15th, 2020 at 11:24 AM ^
I agree. College athletes are also in classrooms with 20-100 other students for multiple days a week, adding to the number of people the NCAA would have to worry about.
There will be fans in the fall. Can’t live in a shell forever.
April 15th, 2020 at 10:31 AM ^
I think there is a lot of room between not living in a shell and putting millions of people in extremely close proximity, yelling at the top of their lungs, on a weekly basis.
this case near Seattle should be considered by everybody looking to open games to the public.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/04/01/us/washington-choir-practice-coronavirus-deaths/index.html
I personally just don’t understand the desire to put people in those situations. I get the interest in watching sports in empty stadiums if it can be pulled off logistically, but the risk/reward for packing those stands, resulting in new outbreaks that can only be contained by drastic measures like we have today, seems awfully shortsighted to me.
April 15th, 2020 at 10:45 AM ^
Who is talking about “forever”? During WWII, when events were postponed, was this thinking as prevalent?
You are downplaying the impact on lives lost while being hyperbolic about the temporary aspects of a pandemic. One season is not “forever.” Two is not.
April 15th, 2020 at 11:03 AM ^
Yeah, it's pretty ridiculous. We're living through something that is unprecedented in modern history and people can't even last a month in lockdown. The ironic thing is rushing back to "normal" will only drag it out longer. Complain all you want, the virus ain't going away any faster.
April 15th, 2020 at 11:15 AM ^
This is a very privileged opinion. 10 million+ people filed for unemployment after one month. You don’t want to see two months. It’s okay I’m sure all these business will be there when lockdown ends. The virus is with us now for the foreseeable future.
April 15th, 2020 at 12:17 PM ^
Did people think a pandemic wouldn't change our lives drastically? Every option sucks, man. Allow people to gather in large groups and more people will die. Keep things closed and many people lose jobs. There's no easy way out of this.
A lot of people seem to think the economy wouldn't suffer if we just let it play its course.
But I disagree. There's no way hundreds of thousands to millions of people die without negatively affecting the economy. The pain would have been spread out over a long period of time (instead of the sudden shock that we are going through right now). But in the end we'd probably still be in a major recession...and on top of that, more people would be dead.
Even now, if we start the economy back up in a precise, safe way...it's not going to suddenly start humming along like it was before the virus started. There will still likely be millions of people in unemployment, even if the vast majority are only temporarily unemployed right now from their previous jobs.
April 15th, 2020 at 11:58 AM ^
It may last forever or it may go away forever in May. The "total" lockdown over "mere" social distancing is only justifiable in a particular case. If there is no second wave, it was a waste of time. If there is a perfectly safe vaccine available in the fall and the virus doesn't go away the lockdown was perfect. If there is a third wave, then we ruined the economy for nothing.
April 15th, 2020 at 11:06 AM ^
forever is hyperbolic, yes. But at some point I’m going to need to see a plan to get back to normal from our leaders. There are a lot more problems that will come of this the longer people stay at home. Waiting for a vaccine is not an option for a lot of people.
April 15th, 2020 at 10:03 AM ^
When the headline didn't bleed enough for your liking.
April 15th, 2020 at 10:04 AM ^
I'm assuming this is the story the OP is referring to. Based on an answer given to a snapchat reporter. He specified:
- No fans
- Played in one location
- Players would have to live quarantined away from family in a heavily surveilled hotel
- Weekly Testing
As another commenter mentioned, what happens when a player tests positive? How do you replace an injury with a minor league call up? Seems like an awfully fragile situation.
April 15th, 2020 at 10:31 AM ^
15 day DL. just like a pulled hammy.
April 15th, 2020 at 10:50 AM ^
I think a league like the MLB could pull something like that off. But AAA ball? AA? I don't know. And if you need to call up a pitcher, are you really bringing up a guy to pitch in the big leagues for the first time on 4 months rest? And how does bringing in a player from outside of the sheltered community work? 1 week quarantine before they are cleared? It's an interesting thought experiment if they are bold enough to try it.
Sports leagues can survive missing a full season. The 2004/05 lockout didn't kill the NHL. So why can't they take a year off right now?
April 15th, 2020 at 11:04 AM ^
But then you’re also going to have to test every single person that touched something he touched or was in the same room as him. Which is going to be a fuck ton of tests after all is said and done. General public needs those tests more than a small select group of people.
April 15th, 2020 at 10:04 AM ^
Mancave? I have a mancave, it's called the house.
April 15th, 2020 at 10:08 AM ^
That room you go to to jerk off? That's kind of like a man cave, except with alcohol, sports, and video games in addition to that. Privacy, solitude, very pleasant.
Uuuuuuh, yeah, like, that's the point. I do anything I want, get anything I want, any place I want, in the entire house. I'm not one of these "ok dear i'll just go to my man cave you've so graciously allowed me to have, i'll be sure to not be too loud dear" types. Pathetic.
Jesus you sound like a tool, and shitty to live with or be married to. Must be lots of healthy equality in that marriage and not an ounce of domestic abuse. Such a dom. Fucking douche.
April 15th, 2020 at 10:10 AM ^
We'll see
April 15th, 2020 at 10:21 AM ^
Isn't that what the 2nd amendment is for? If the government refuses to give back power, then as they said in France in 1789:
"VIVA LA CHIPPITY CHOPPITY!"
April 15th, 2020 at 10:33 AM ^
No. That’s what democracy is for.
April 15th, 2020 at 11:33 AM ^
While I believe democracy is going to continue to rule the day, the 0.001% chance that the federal government flips this into some form an oppressive monarchy, well my sarcastic response to the original comment stands. We're years away from that though.
April 15th, 2020 at 12:11 PM ^
I mean our current President already thinks he is a king/dictator
Yet, unlike Governors, he has not passed sweeping laws on this issue.
I don't like Trump, but his failure to enact martial law should not be seen as an indicator he is a king.
April 15th, 2020 at 10:39 AM ^
Civil rights don't matter as much as you think.
Mental illness and poverty don't matter as much as you think.
Only keeping COVID numbers down matters.
To suggest otherwise is horribly insensitive.
April 15th, 2020 at 10:57 AM ^
Civil rights in a civil society requires one to acquiesce to the society, not the individual. Your desire to do what you want regardless of its infringement on the lives of others is not a civil right. Your feelings about quarantines is not a violation of a civil right—the governments are trying to do their jobs of protecting people from dying. It’s very 2020 for us to have the attention span and memory of a goldfish, forgetting why there are quarantines—so that other cities and states don’t have an Italy, Spain, NYC death toll.
The same people calling cautious people “doomers” are the same people who believe the country will be ruined economically forever and saying that Big Brother is making us “sheep.” That’s not it all all. Those of us willing to listen to safety protocols believe that is the best way for our country to handle the disease, help hospitals, and recover more quickly. We don’t think this will be “forever,” like those who “just want to get back to normal and ignore quarantines.”
April 15th, 2020 at 11:13 AM ^
You are completely ignorant of both civil rights and, more importantly, due process. You are talking about stripping rights from asymptomatic individuals who essentially have a “defect” in their blood. You have moved to a point of deep seeded fascism in your mind without even realizing it.
Of all the takes in this thread, yours stand alone in their anarchist stupidity and shallow thought. Strange how they actually mirror your sports postings.
It only sounds anarchist to you because you have lost all comprehension of a free society. In a month. You are talking about forced testing, publication and decimimation of results, complete loss of medical confidentiality, forfeiture of medical autonomy, with penalties. The complete suspension/elimination of habeas corpus. You want to call me an anarchist, fine, you are a fascist. Yes, you. You are the complete embodiment of what multiple members of my family have taken up arms to fight against.
April 15th, 2020 at 11:21 AM ^
I think you misunderstand the term doomer. It isn't meant for anyone acknowledging the virus or taking precautions. I don't leave the house without wipes and sanitizer right now. I'm incredibly concerned for my parents and relatives in their sixties and up. I had a friend and his ICU nurse fiancee tell me that they both tested positive (fever broke for one of them four days ago and the other is asymptomatic).
Doomers and Karens are those who refuse to acknowledge any shred of positivity. Any discussion of what the goals and criteria are to deal with the virus while carrying on with a meaningful and fruitful life defaults to "no vaccine", "i saw an undated photo of someone outside on my social media, so adults don't deserve rights because they don't take this seriously". We need less doomers and less Karens, they contribute very little to solving or dealing with this.
April 15th, 2020 at 11:43 AM ^
Some people want this to be bad. They hate the Trumpsters who called it a "bad flu" and they want it to cause a lot of pain and wreck places like Florida. It will give them support for their orginal worse case scenario prediction.
My experience is that I have been okay with staying at home and being smart. I think most people are that way. I have also been seeing more and more things to indicate it is not as big of a threat as portrayed in the news. I am not a Trump voter. I voted for Whitmer. Generally consider myself independent. But, a number of people who wanted martial law at the beginning have fought against any optimism and even assumed I am some MAGA fan. These people seem to want this to be horrible for their own political reasons (or because they are just fearful types). Similarly, crazy MAGA people never want to shut down or appreciate that this is not a "hoax" or conspiracy.
I am not sure who I hate more on the extremes of both sides, I just want rational people to discuss a middle ground.
April 15th, 2020 at 11:46 AM ^
You and I are kindred spirits on this. Salute.
April 15th, 2020 at 11:36 AM ^
Its not black and white. It is a weighing of values.
I am extremely experienced in knowing about individual rights and their limits in society.
Your feelings about quarantines is not a violation of a civil right—the governments are trying to do their jobs of protecting people from dying.
Quarantines are undoubtedly a violation of rights, done for an social purpose. You describe it as "protecting people from dying" but that is not the social purpose here. If it was then the government could keep you in your house forever to "preserve life."
How severe does a disease need to be to justify taking away rights? Now, think about the fact that NO ONE knows how severe this disease is at this point. It is new and unknown. The original CFR of 3.4% provided by the WHO a month ago is gone. Fauci has said maybe 1%. We learn more each day about the real CFR and treatments that may help. The threat will diminish. So, we wait. How long do we wait?
I don;t know. But, there will have to be a point. There are very important other factors keeping us from waiting forever. Rights are some of them.
Did you just say that claiming civil right matter is horribly insensitive?