US Senator calling colleges to follow Ivy League sports example
Link: https://amp.usatoday.com/amp/5402884002
Sen. Blumenthal (D-Conn.) publicly calling on US universities to follow Ivy League example on fall sports. Obviously, he would have a vested interest in providing political cover to that league's recent decision, but I would expect many other national level politicians to come out with similar statements soon. He also recently co-sponsored a bill to outlaw liability waivers for university student-athletes.
Article also mentions the Chris Hinton parent movement.
Trump never called the virus a hoax. Please stop the lies.
The Rona is what happens when you eat too much deep fried peanut butter covered Oreos.
Very true especially considering how consistently far apart they seem to be on these matters as all of this has obviously turned political
Werent the leftists on here agreeing we should open up 2 momths ago? I seem to remember them saying we should open up
Negged for calling it “the rona.” That isn’t, never was, and never will be a hip and cool thing to say.
Yes, it's UM Fan from Sydney, the ultimate authority on all things hip and cool to say...
We should all take hip and cool advice from a guy with a Venn diagram as his profile picture.
This is all you need to know about that scumbag senator.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/richard-blumenthal-vietnam/
I like how he said his misrepresentations were unintentional. whatever, dick bag.
I don't think the Ivy League is concerned about having political cover. That may be why they acted first. Other small conferences are sure to follow.
On the other hand, a Senator from Connecticut can make that statement without exposing himself to the political fallout a colleague from Oklahoma, Ohio, Michigan, Florida and so on would experience.
Even without COVID, Blumenthal should be calling for UConn cancel their football season.
To clarify my OP, I do not believe the Ivy needed or requested him to comment. I do not believe he spoke out now simply to defend the Ivies. Yet, he does represent at least some of their interests directly (being in his state) and he also is an alum of two of the Ivy schools (probably other connections exist also). It is not a coincidence that he is speaking out in favor of their actions just now, and it is giving them de facto political cover whether or not anyone intended it.
After the election, this is all magically going to disappear.
You're probably right, starting around January or February we're going to start seeing cases just disappear through the magic of a vaccine.
This thread will go well.
I just logged in to say that I have no opinion on this matter.
Refreshing take.
Perhaps we could somehow convert all of the football games into combination football games and "peaceful demonstrations"/riots because, somewhat mysteriously, the latter events do not spread the virus.
Best idea yet, can't we all just get along?
You'd never, ever hear a senator from a state like Texas, Ohio, Florida, Oklahoma, Georgia, or Alabama make that statement.
Not because of political affiliation. I'm pretty sure Sen. Blumenthal doesn't have to deal with any pushback whatsoever from his own instate constituents about cancelling fall sports. Or more specifically, cancelling football.
A senator from any one of the above-mentioned states making that kind of statement would be crucified.
Yep..and that's why its is almost certain the SEC is going to play football (or be amongst the last to cancel)....the virus may be raging in that region but CFB is pretty close to religion...
You say it’s raging, and I assume you’re basing that off of the spike in cases, which there has been. However, it appears as though the hospitals in Florida in particular are just fine. According to a Desantis interview i heard yesterday, the ICU capacity is well below normal range. I forget the exact numbers, but they’re at somewhere in the 70s%, whereas during normal, pre-Covid, operation, they were routinely running in the 90s%.
That could mean any number of things from the age of those getting it to severity of symptoms across the board to advances in treatment that prevents ICU admission.
Exactly. And wasnt the whole goal to keep hospitals from being overwhelmed?
15 days to slow the spread...
I mean, it's not going well. I recommend you broaden your news sources to wider than DeSantis press conferences.
The number of Florida hospital intensive care units (ICUs) hitting capacity increased Tuesday, with at least 56 ICUs saying they have maxed out and another 35 saying their bed availability is at 10 percent or below.
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/506344-56-florida-icus-at-capacity-as-virus-surges
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Inside the intensive care unit where coronavirus patients are treated in a McAllen, Texas, hospital, nearly every patient is on a ventilator and their chance of beating the virus is slim. Texas on Tuesday broke its single-day record, reporting just over 10,000 new virus cases.
Medical staff at the South Texas Health System McAllen hospital are strained, struggling to treat more than 140 patients — the highest they've had since the start of the pandemic.
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In Arizona, which saw its lowest-ever number of available ICU beds Tuesday, Dr. Murtaza Akhter told Lemon so many patients are coming in that he is already having to make tough decisions over resources.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/08/us/emergency-room-doctors-coronavirus-capacity/index.html
Desantis isn’t my only source, and no I didn’t grab the stats at the time to quote them verbatim. But since you challenged I have now gone back and quoted the actual numbers from reports obtained by the media.
There are some local issues, yes. Clay county has issues. All of their beds are full. Across the state only 53 facilities are full in 26 of the state’s 67 counties. CNBC has it at 83% full right now. That doesn’t seem that bad to me. Yes there are a couple isolated areas that are struggling, but the state as a whole seems to be doing ok. Not excellent, but ok.
The other question is “what does success look like?” you have to expect increased cases and hospitalizations and even death. There’s no stopping it.
I guess my point is that since Florida is one of the more populous states in the Union, they seem to be doing ok considering they have opened up more significantly than most.
I can't see how, on any reasonable measure, Florida is currently doing "ok" but I'm not going to argue with you. Dozens of counties, some large and some small, are having major issues.
But "there’s no stopping it" is absolutely not true. Literally dozens of other countries have stopped it, some early, some late. The US has not, due to inept leadership at the highest levels.
I think it may be a bit premature to declare that Florida is doing okay when their cases are doing this and their deaths just far exceeded their single-day record. Deaths tend to lag behind cases.
Florida just reported its record high for deaths (120), for positivity rate of tests (a horrible 22% -- anything over 5% is bad), and another 9000 cases. Oh, and the median age is creeping up again.
Just a disaster, considering they had enough lead time to implement what we now know works (e.g., universal masking; not having large gatherings indoors w people in close proximity) and crush the virus.
Oh well, DisneyWorld opened today. I'm sure it's fine.
https://floridapolitics.com/archives/347639-120-deaths-put-florida-over-4k-covid-19-fatalities
Doing OK and new cases hitting daily highs do not go hand in hand. I'll hold off until we see what happens from here. If Florida can handle the rising cases without overloading their hospitals that would be good, but it's premature to say they will.
I'm reminded of the discussions when someone suggested we were doing well because there were only 60K deaths. That wasn't very many weeks ago.
I recommend you broaden your news sources to wider than DeSantis press conferences.
Says the guy who quotes CNN.
My guillotine is hungry for U.S. senators
/Sarcasm
Highly political on Blumenthal's part. He's on the far left and from CT. If we see right wing politicians agree with Blumenthal and put up a more consensus, then I'll take notice.
Opening up from COVID is like a hot but doomed relationship. You really want it to work, and you fool yourself for awhile, but it slowly, almost too late, dawns on you that she’s bat-shit crazy. I mean she killed your cousin.... What was that all about?
We've all been there, man.
If you read the story, pretty much everyone on this board agrees with Blumenthal: the reason the B1G, SEC, ACC, etc haven't cancelled football is because of money. That's just a fact. Whether you think that is a valid reason or not is a different question.
Personally, I think it's a valid reason. UM, Clemson, Alabama, etc are $75-plus million a year operations. If their seasons are cancelled, a huge hole is blown in their (often overstuffed) budgets that these athletic depts have built over the past decades. Layoffs will be in the tens of thousands and every effort should be taken to see if the season can be conducted reasonably safely. It might not be enough, but they should try.
Also, the money is a reason why the B1G, SEC etc could possibly conduct the season safely -- all that cash allows schools to pay for testing, PPE, med staff, hotel rooms, insurance, etc that schools outside the Group of Five can't afford.
We'll see if boatloads of cash solves the many, many problems that are cropping up (e.g., OSU and other schools 'pausing' workouts). But it's not looking great right now.
the reason the B1G, SEC, ACC, etc haven't cancelled football is because of money.
I don't agree. I would wager a vast majority of students, alums, and players would vote to play, and they don't stand to make any money.
If you don't think big-time money is the key factor in terms of how decisions get made in big-time college sports, I'm not sure what to tell you.
The College Football Playoff bowl games are worth $500 million/year -- and that's just 3 games. The cash drives decisions.
Players want to play, but what players want is irrelevant to what is decided, unless they decide (en masse) to not play b/c they don't think it's safe. And that goes back to money -- you start telling players, "Hey guys -- we don't have money for weekly tests, for PPE, for treatment, etc" top-notch players will say, "I think I'll sit this season out" and wait for the NFL draft, not to mention the young men like Chris Hinton who have involved parents. Any notion of a valid season will be over.
I said I dont agree there's only one factor. Yes, of course money is the main one.
The players being overwhelmingly in favor isnt everything, but it should be considered.
That is how things usually happen. A community decides to play a game against another.
In big-time college football, this isn't a "community" deciding to play another one -- it is a huge, billion dollar (nominally non-profit) corporation agreeing to play another huge, billion dollar corporation. It is governed by politically appointed / elected boards, multinational corporations who decide they want to be apart of the events, and donors who underwrite much of it.
If Nike or General Motors etc determines that college football is too risky (e.g., in the unlikely event a couple players get seriously ill and die, or if they don't think the schools are taking proper steps to protect the players) and pulls advertising and support b/c it's bad for their brand, it's over. If a board of regents decide in-person classes shouldn't happen--at all--in the fall, it's over (at least as a fall sport) for that school.
The players being willing to play is necessary, but not remotely sufficient, and is not a key driver. This isn't a pickup game where Trevor Lawrence and the boys will agree to meetup with their opponents at the local ball field.
Sounds like Texas HS football season might be cancelled. Considering that's basically the 6th Power Conference in college football, that's a huge announcement if it happens.
wow the Dallas School Superintendent just told @GarrettHaake he's pretty sure there will be no Texas high school football this year
— Jake Lahut (@JakeLahut) July 9, 2020
There's still a disconnect from a macro public health standpoint for having students on campus but no sports. Once you have students on campus, the impact of sports being played is minor. Whether bars are open or closed, there will be considerable spread on campus.
If you can justify students on campus, sports naturally follows. The only counterargument I can see is that from a pragmatic/logistical standpoint, it's too much of a mess to bother with.
Another major disconnect is the source of COVID for students. Administrators are working their asses off as they try to figure out a way to keep classes socially distant, to carry out hybrid models, etc. IMO the real source of COVID will be parties, not lecture halls. A packed house party will spread this thing like wildfire, with those infected students infecting professors, administrators, and the communities that surround them.
Right, so my point is, either nix the whole thing on the basis of what's in the best interest for public health or alternatively be transparent that there will be spread and quit this "informed public health semester" nonsense. Isn't every semester public health informed? It's just optics. As would having kids on campus and not having sports.
Not surprising given location and proximity to Yale.
Blumenthal has done a poor job.