OT: Oh look, a Harbaugh has to speak when nobody else will - John calls out the NFL's Covid policies
On a local radio show yesterday, John said the NFL's policies, which essentially mirror societies Covid-19 policies, are not really workable for football. He said there's no way to enforce distancing in huddles, or the showers, and that communication is paramount. The implication there being face masks and zoom meetings are not workable for football.
None of this is a surprise, nor has it not been thought of. And maybe some other coaches have said things locally to their fans? Nonetheless, the national news (Yahoo, in this case) picked up a Harbaugh voice - again. Personally, I'm glad the Harbaugh family is joined at the hip with Michigan football...
I do agree that the NFL (and college, as it were) should shape it's public story to fit how the game will actually be played. I'm not really interested in hearing the NFL talk about distancing, while seeing it's players shoulder to shoulder in the huddle. Tell me what you're doing, NFL. Be honest - tell people you're going against Covid-19 protocol to play the game. We won't care, we'll tune in to watch, and we'll turn a (mostly) blind eye when our multi-millionaire hero players get sick. (Or don't...)
Yes, I will watch. Just be honest with what you're doing!
Jim needs to step up and use Michigan as a blueprint for the league. Our OL/DL/DBs have been on the cutting edge of social distancing for years. His teams have always been ahead of the curve on this. It's time to take note NFL!
Not sure I understand this. Did you just rip on the 3 most productive position groups during Harbaugh's tenure here?
There's a reason he's broke.
I bet he borrowed the money for his PhD in underwater basketweaving. Those student loans suck for a worthless degree!
In my personal opinion, there are two possible ways that Covid in America will play out at this point. It will largely be forgotten as an "emergency" and will be dealt with pragmatically in areas where there are large spikes in hospitalizations and deaths, or the fear of the virus will continue to permeate to the extent that these discussions turn into the real understanding that there are a lot of things that simply can't be done if that is the path we choose, at least until if and when there is a vaccine developed that people are comfortable with.
If you look at the CDCs recommendations for reopening schools, one is quick to conclude that if such recommendations are really put in place, school is not a place you want your kid going in the fall. They aren't teaching kids with plexiglass partitions in between them in one spot the entire day with a mask on and no gym, library, art, or recess. That isn't school. I want my kids to go back to school but they aren't going to that "school."
Same as football, you can't socially distance and play football, and you cannot suspend activities every time an asymptomatic player tests positive. You either play football or you don't, but there isn't a Covid "version" of football and football activities, you either play or you don't. It is either a "yes" or "no" answer to activities such as this, not "yes, but under the following 1,274 conditions."
I am not arguing one over the other right now, I'm really not. Are we really doing these things, or are they out for the time being. I think the public will largely decide based on their actions and opinions over the next 30 days, and how the inevitable spike in case counts due largely to increased testing is presented to the public.
Agreed. It seems like a lot of ideas start with the answer someone wants -- "We want there to be NFL football" or "we want our kids to go back to school in the Fall" -- and then tries to work backward from the answer to some minimum set of measures required to make that answer "workable." The problem is, when you already know what answer you want, it's easy to overlook some of the challenges that would prevent you from actually getting there, like "you can't have a socially distant line of scrimmage" or "elementary school kids will definitely not consistently wear masks properly." But no one wants to look like they're putting anyone at risk to get to the answer they want either, so we end up with this situation where people are being somewhat disingenuous about what's involved. I agree with OP - if the NFL wants to just be honest about putting its athletes at greater risk for the virus, and came out with data showing that the players would rather play despite that risk, then I think fans could get behind that. (Considering CTE and other issues, I don't think it would be difficult to make a case that playing pro football involves known risks - but of course the NFL has tried hard to bury that one too.) But why is it necessary to downplay the risk or make silly half-hearted overtures that we know won't really work? Why not just be honest about it and move forward?
But why is it necessary to ... make silly half-hearted overtures that we know won't really work? Why not just be honest about it and move forward?
Welcome to Airport security post 9-11
Without getting political, either, it is about John Harbaugh's comments on being practical in this approach to reopen football practices. It is also about how the public is willing to deal with virus as a non emergency, which you stated very well. The bigger question is are we willing to accept shortening the curve during this second wave or not? The first wave of COVID was about lengthening the curve because the medical experts did not know what we were with about this virus. It was the only option at that time.
I hope the John Harbaugh comments will be considered by other coaches and football management types.
When you have to assure folks that you’re not arguing a point of view, you should question whether that is really true. When the whole argument is based on an assertion that may or may not be true, it is probably worthwhile to support that assertion.
How much of the increased number of cases is due to true growth in cases vs growth in testing? It is clearly a mix and I’d suggest more of the mix is in fact due to growth, not increased testing. When you are seeing increased hospitalizations, that Has nothing to do with increased testing:
Arizona
Arizona's reported cases of COVID-19, reported deaths and hospitalizations for COVID-19 patients continued to rise on Thursday as part of two weeks of particularly high numbers.
Inpatient hospitalizations for patients with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 hit its highest number on Wednesday, with 1,291 hospitalizations.
Oregon
- Cases of COVID-19 are increasing across Oregon, affecting both urban and rural areas. Hospitalizations are also beginning to increase in Oregon.
- Multnomah County has seen an increase in residents admitted to the hospital over the last two weeks. The percent of tests that are positive is going up, in the face of increased testing. Over 40% of the new cases in the last week have not been traced to a source.
- Hood River County has seen an increase in new cases over the last week and is managing several simultaneous workplace outbreaks.
- Marion County has seen an almost 40% increase in cases over the last week, and new hospital admissions COVID-19 for county residents has increased over the last two weeks.
- Polk County has seen an increase in cases over the last week and is managing a work site outbreak.
https://ktvz.com/news/2020/06/11/oregon-reports-record-178-new-covid-19-cases-two-more-deaths/
North Carolina
Nearly three weeks later, North Carolina is again seeing an increase of COVID-19 cases, according to state data, and currently has more people hospitalized for the disease than at any point since the start of the outbreak. In all, the state has had more than 38,000 confirmed cases and 1,000 deaths.
Houston
The ad hoc medical facility opened at NRG Stadium on the city’s south side will be reestablished if pressure on the local hospital system becomes “severe,” Hidalgo said in a meeting with reporters.
“We’re moving in the wrong direction with hospital admissions and if it continues we’ll have to see what else we could do including sounding the alarm to our residents and moving our alert system to red,” Lemaitre wrote.
Ok man. I really wasn't arguing a position. Not everything somebody says is loaded. Yes, there are going to be spikes in areas, for reasons not just limited to additional testing. Point conceded. It was exactly my point as to how the public responds to those spikes will shape what we do and don't do come fall.
I suspect the public will respond better if they are not told that most of the increased case counts are due to increased testing and not actual spikes and then they start to see multiple places where this is not true. The key is to find the balance of measures that allow the greatest return to normalcy as possible while minimizing surges our hospital systems can’t handle.
The fact that we have at least 4 areas in the country struggling with that at a point cases should be at their lowest suggests we have some work to do,
But it is not. If the increase in cases are because of increase in testing only, then the percentage of positive cases would go down. But that has not been the case, the percentage of positive cases actually have gone up in most cases.
And I am not sure how we are going to "respond better" when a large chunk of the population cannot even be bothered to wear a mask in public. Many countries in Asia and Europe are starting to get out of this quagmire because almost everyone complies with public orders and wear masks. Americans feel too special to follow rules.
All the spikes are not even factoring all the protests that have gone down. These are just the echoes of many states opening things back up. I shudder to think what the numbers will be in a month.
We are our own worst enemy.
I don't think there is one educated person in this country who thinks the number of cases is going up solely due to testing. I've yet to hear anyone even state such a thing, not even the orange man despite our media's valiant "fact-checkers" making sure we thought that's what he said.
But testing availability is a factor. You can get a test for any reason now anywhere, and that was not the case a month ago. You had to have reasons to get a test, despite the certain knowledge that a certain number of people were asymptomatic.
Of course the number of cases is up due to the reopening of society. What did you expect? It's expected, not a crisis. As long as the number of hospitalizations does not overwhelm our regional hospital systems, this is the new normal until most everyone has had the virus. Most everyone else is used to it in fact, if not in polls and words.
This is the quote I was responding to: “inevitable spike in case counts due largely to increased testing”. Clearly not everyone understand that cases are going up due to opening things up.
I then pointed out 4 cases where that is not true and where local authorities are concerned about the upward trend in hospitalizations. I think my disagreement with you is that absent more concern, I unfortunately think that we will have places where hospitals get overwhelmed.
Might as well add Florida as they are spiking and have already hit a record number of cases before noon today and this isn't just Dade county anymore but places like Orange County (Orlando).
This is going to be interesting as it seems states like Michigan will probably be better for sporting events than Florida later this summer.
Yes, Florida is at a new high in daily cases, but I wish folks were putting these numbers were put in some sort of context.
On a per capita basis, Florida's current daily case number (7-day moving average basis) is still the 25th highest current per capita number amongst the 50 states (+ DC). It really isn't that high when compared to all the states.
And their current per capita daily case number indexes at a 59 versus Colorado's all-time high, a 54 versus Mississippi's all-time high, and a 72 versus Wisconsin's all-time high. Those are just 3 random states I selected there, but they are states that never had any sort of widespread outbreaks or issues even during the height of the crisis in April.
Yet, Florida's current numbers remain considerably below those 3 states' all-time high.
Point being - yes, Florida's numbers are at highs for the state. They still aren't that bad when viewed from a different lens.
Ultimately, "regression to the mean" will be a thing. States that had high per capita rates at first will tend to fall, and states with low per capita rates at first will tend to rise. That's not unexpected, IMO.
Florida also had 5k deaths from "pneumonia" so far this year, when it's typically less than 1k, and it's only June.
Their numbers are bullshit.
That claim has made the rounds but seems to be fake news.
Damnit, I hate when I fall for shit like that. I stand corrected.
Although that article also indicates that death counts are higher than reported and that the state has been screwing around with the numbers.
Speaking of Florida...
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article243363086.html
Too lazy to click.....what did Florida man do now?
We're getting a bit sloppy with terminology here. New York, Detroit and New Orleans spiked. Some states are seeing increases now but not like that. A lot of graphs circulating around the internet don't use consistent y-axis scales and make it look like going up by a couple hundred hospital patients in a week is a massive increase.
Arizona might be increasing the fastest (and people there should take precaution) but it's not on the level of the March outbreaks. Per this data, it had 1,079 COVID patients hospitalized on June 4 and 1,291 on June 11. To put that into perspective, Michigan (which has about 40 % more people than AZ) had 3,986 COVID patients hospitalized on April 13.
(Peter Walker's data is interesting but he seems to want to make each state's graph an exciting roller-coaster that goes from the floor to the ceiling. He should normalize his y-scale on a per-capita basis to allow for more accurate comparisons between states.)
When Lake State comes out with their "banned word list for 2021" in 6 1/2 months, I hope they include the word "spike."
Way too many people are conflating the terms "increase" and "spike."
Even Nate Silver tweeted about this a few hours ago.
Not directly to your point but.....
As an AZ resident, I will agree we are watching the numbers a bit more closely these days but it is also true that even with these “big” increases we are still at about 1/5 the number of cases and 1/10 the number of deaths per capita as NY. (AZ shows the “worst” numbers of your examples in these areas.)
My wife pays much more attention to the local news and noted that we are still barely into the “low” category for ICU beds (like 28% open vs. 30% guideline) and have “tons” of respirators available.
Lest we forget the goal was not to “beat” the disease with the shutdowns. They were to prevent a NYC/Northern Italy-type spike in cases that overwhelms medical capacity. While I feel many people are taking a much too laissez-faire stance on Covid - (is wearing a mask that much of an inconvenience when out at the stores people?!?), - there was always going to be an increase in cases once the stay at home orders were lifted. The question is will the increase remain manageable? We have made it to the supposed “lower risk” season in terms of transmission which buys time to build herd-immunity and/or advance medically before the “high” season returns.
The one item that you left out of the discussion is how long it will take to develop a vaccine and how that timetable and risk correlate. Reduced risk and a reopened economy may preclude items that are non-essential at the moment.
Good post.
Of those 2 scenarios you list in the 1st paragraph, it does seem like the trend of late is a shift toward Paragraph 2. A scenario where fear of the virus continues to permeate.
I think john’s point, if you boil it down, is that society requires some element of risk but that we should err on the side of caution. And of all the things to risk, unpaid student-athletes playing a game aren’t among them. Many of the people putting these young people at risk are doing so mostly for their own entertainment or profit, not because they really think the kids would be better off playing. They clearly would not be. They can always just wait a year. It’s ultimately just immoral to put players in this position. But it’s always easy for a lot of old white guys make decisions for a group mostly composed of young black men. (And here’s where some idiot sights some unscientific “survey” showing that players want to play.)
If only the CDC was aware of their own statistics that show kids are as close as possible to zero risk. As the statement in Britain from Cambridge and Oxford scientists, reported in the UK press yesterday, said, "children under 15 have a higher risk of getting struck by lightning than dying of Covid-19." And as scientists in Europe have concluded (which is why their schools are already open) children are also at low risk to passing the virus to adults. Our own stats in the US show of 100k deaths only 150 or so are under age 24, and only a small amount over that under 35. Children are at close to zero risk, athletes are at extremely minimal risk. As the noted conservative newspaper the Guardian (sarcasm) reported "School re-opening hasn't led to increase in Covid cases."
There is no longer any science behind the notion of keeping schools, or football, from opening.
My 34 year old little cousin just had a covid induced stroke.
Death isn't the only risk or negative outcome with this thing.
Sincere condolences.
I don't deny your second comment, but the facts are what they are also.
A lot of the way forward is going to be informed by whether or not the protests around the country lead to a massive spike in cases. We know protesters haven't been staying 6 feet away from each other. We know that while many are wearing masks, many aren't.
Whatever happens, that's a lot of data about what is or isn't relatively safe, at least outdoors.
The data coming out of several states is concerning, Arizona in particular. Not only have their cases spiked, which is to be expected with increased testing, but the percentage of positive tests has increased or stayed flat, which is the opposite of what you want to see.
Maricopa County is at or nearing their ICU capacity, right now.
People think that this is over because it's summer now, and it really isn't.
i think i read the article you read re: ICU stuff. the number they quote is probably the 'normal' ICU operating range, meaning there hasn't been some bust in coverage and suddenly C-19 is loading the ICU's up. the comment was that they are concerned that they might get over capacity (a valid concern) not that suddenly they are stuffing bodies in the ICU. i could be wrong, but that was my understanding.
The Arizona state health director is urging hospitals to "fully activate" emergency plans. They are very worried.
I'm generally on the conservative side of things when it comes to Covid. Conservative as, this is normal, and stop panicking, but if the state health department wasn't doing this, they aren't doing their jobs.
Just like the temporary hospitals they set up in NY and Detroit, that they basically didn't use. I'd rather have them and not use them than need them and not have them.
Arizona has a lot of old people too, like Florida. I wouldn't mess around with a hospitalization increase there. All it takes is one nursing home, or 55+ community getting hit and you can get a ton of patients.
I’m glad I am In Scottsdale now for a 8yr old baseball tournament. I walked into a grocery store and gas station, besides the clerks, I was the only person wearing a mask.
I wonder if people who have been waiting months for elective procedures have anything to do with increased visits to hospitals?
Don't want to interrupt the fear porn though.
username checks out.
Generally what they are tracking is both ICU usage overall and increases due to Covid in a range of hospital factors: emergency room visits, hospital admittances, ICU patients. If you are at the high end of your normal range and you are seeing increases in COVID related cases, accompanied by increases in test positivity, alarm bells should be going off. Caseloads can grow very quickly if you have any significant amount of community spread. That is why, as I noted, there are at least 4 areas of the country (Arizona, North Carolina, Oregon and Houston) that are seeing exactly that combination of factors.
Texas and especially Houston as well
The whole Summer will be better because of heat I think is misunderstood by many. It is more if people are outside there is a less chance of spread. In the United States we all go indoors in air conditioning especially in the South when it is brutally hot. We will see spread just like during the winter in states where people are primarily inside.
I'll admit I assumed the summer will help kill it off and I was wrong. Brazil straddles the equator and has been barely keeping their hospital system going over the last couple weeks. That's not the hallmark of a disease that's going to die in the summer.
My assumption is that universal air-conditioning has made summer easier for seasonal diseases to survive in relatively hostile conditions.
That's true, though I do think people assumed it would act a bit like the seasonal flu which, as it name denotes, is somewhat seasonal and less prevalent in the warmer months. But that was mostly speculation (a lot of it politically motivated it appears), and C19 doesn't appear to have the same aversion to sun and heat as similar diseases.
My guess is we'll see an uptick in areas with lots of AC usage and older populations, especially in restaurants and other places where people tend to hang around for some time.
Yes, that was my assumption too. I think what may be missing from that equation is the host numbers. The seasonal flu has a very small number of potential hosts to spread through. Only the young, who haven't had it, the old who haven't had it in long enough the anti-bodies don't work anymore, and the select few who missed it somehow in the middle.
That's pretty tough sledding to spread already. Add summer to the mix, and you've made it too hostile.
Covid meanwhile has 90% of humanity to spread through. Most of whom have AC.
I think people correlate heat with sunshine and an increase in Vitamin D which helps prevent/fight diseases. That's also a big factor to sickness during colder weather months in MI. Yea, we stay inside all the time but there is also less sunshine.
Whether they are wearing masks or not is a minor factor. As we’ve been told, (most) masks only reduce the particulates being spread. When you add in the shouting/singing (which increases the volume) it cancels (at least some of) the benefit of wearing masks.
The protests will definitely help measure transmission in an outdoor mass gathering scenario. An unplanned “case study” for all practical purposes!
A similar “case study” played out in Missouri when 2 barbers who were cutting hair while positive exposed 140 people. NONE of them got covid. Masks were being worn:
Sorry, I'm not quite sure what point you're actually trying to make... You say masks are a minor factor, and then cite a situation where even indoors masks could be seen to have made a big difference.
bad bot
From what I've observed, a high percentage of the protesters were young. Thus, you will probably have many mild or asymptomatic cases. Being outdoors seems to yield a huge benefit in terms of avoiding infection. Should there be an impact, it should start showing itself any day now.
We'll probably average 750 deaths per day nationwide until September. Then the real fun starts, with no more economic relief, commencement of mass evictions, and half the country at a standstill out of rational fear.
But the immediate answer is waivers. When you want to resume activities that run counter to official public health policy directives, you have to have people sign away their rights to sue. There is no other way around this. It doesn't matter whether the legal ground is shaky. That's never stopped lawyers before, and it won't stop them now.
Many people will die this fall, in numbers none are willing to accept without a certain degree of sociopathy. It is what it is.
Many people will die this fall, due to schools reopening? I am just trying to clarify why you say that. Hasn't it been suggested that the virus is not impacted by weather? What in particular about the fall makes you say that? Just schools?