Coronavirus (Sports-Related and General)

[Philsmania]

Back East, Shore communities are pleading for people to not come down, in some cases saying they may blockade the causeways from the mainland and allow entry only to fulltime residents.

[Jeff05]

zambonir, there is an imagined sense of being far removed and safe from whatever ails the rest of the world. The following article is indicative of a traditional attitude in Australia: authorities provide advice and those further down the ladder tell them to "take a hike".

Suburban cricket finals go ahead against Cricket Victoria's 'strong...

Philsmania, the men who play in the National Rugby League are unimaginably hard and tough, but as the article indicates below, even one of the game's all-time greats thinks it's time to call it quits for a while.

Cameron Smith wants NRL season suspended because of coronavirus pandemic

Obviously, the decision of the NRL to continue is due, in large part, to TV rights and money. While the NRL is not as big as many US and European sporting competitions, it doesn't seem to face the same political and social pressures. For the moment, the Commonwealth and State governments are not directing sports bodies to 'cease and desist'. They are simply emphasising 'social distancing'. Hence, yesterday, people were barred from attending the Golden Slipper - the world's richest race for 2-year-old thoroughbreds.

The bellwether (bell tolling?!) in Australia will be the closure of the public schools and the cessation of the of the NRL and the Australian Football League seasons.

[Dirk41]

Anyone with a best guess estimate of when daily life will look "normal" again?

[Jeff05]

When MLB recommences!

[zambonir]

it really depends whether these mitigation efforts are good enough to for testing and medicine to do their thing. I'm not sure it's supposed to go back to normal at all though. Not clear that hot weather will make a difference and we could be looking at a series of curves, where we get a month of relative normalcy and then another month of distancing. That would not be good for sports.

[Dirk41]

Makes sense. And it also seems like it would be worse for people in general. How many of those waves until people completely disregard the distancing orders? If you are in the city, you see they are doing that right now. It just feels like we are getting into something we have no way out of and it will be a long, long time until things are the same.

[schillingfan]

Things won’t return the same. I think we will come back to a new normal, which is probably good. Hopefully more corporate responsibility, less income inequality, more independence, more family time, . We’ve given planet earth a bit of a breather.

[rpmcmurphy]

Agree. Things will never be the same, but that is not all bad. Some things shouldn’t be the same, like the things you mention. Our financial and health care institutions need a complete overhaul.

[el-pietro]

Two years. We wont see normal life again until a vaccine is available. And even then the world will look very very different in light of millions dead, thousands of business gone and mass unemployment.

[Dirk41]

This seems realistic. It also feels like people didn't take this "seriously" until sports were cancelled. If/when the NBA,NHL, and MLB cancel their seasons completely, that would likely be the time the public sees what they really have to do.

[zambonir]

Yeah I wasn't talking big picture normalcy. Just restaurants being open (though many won't survive) and people going to their jobs (If they still have them) and, perhaps, having sports. I agree, it could be up to two years.

And it remains to be seen what we do as a society. This is either the rebirth of the New Deal and Great Society that much of our political establishment dedicated the last 50 years to undoing (often as a bi-partisan exercise), or, well... it's not. We're really going to need a new WPA this time.

[allentown]

I think mid-June is the earliest we may have sports and the fans may not come. TV-only revenue may be the rule of the day. I think people will still be staying away from restaurants in mid-June and that even the deniers will be trying to avoid crowds. I can't see us on the downslope of infections until at least 1 May, with enough new infections through all of May to keep a ton of precautions in place. Sports just won't reopen during this time.

[rpmcmurphy]

I think mid-June is the earliest we may have sports and the fans may not come. TV-only revenue may be the rule of the day. I think people will still be staying away from restaurants in mid-June and that even the deniers will be trying to avoid crowds. I can't see us on the downslope of infections until at least 1 May, with enough new infections through all of May to keep a ton of precautions in place. Sports just won't reopen during this time.

Allentown. Ten days ago I would have thought this prediction to be extremely pessimistic. Now I fear that it may be overly optimistic.

This is a study cited on 538.com about an aggregate of expert predictions on COVID-19. The study was done on March 18, and the predictions were for the number of cases on March 23.

Today, we blew past 30,000 cases, three times the number the experts were predicting just 4 days ago.

[andyb]

I would not put too much stock in that (which really assumes the apocalypse is happening). All those data modelers were using imperfect data sets to do their modeling. The number of cases were always going to explode when we started testing in bulk. It is not good news, of course, that the number of positives is exploding. This also means that many more (probably hundreds of thousands of people) have the virus by now.

Hopefully the vast majority of those cases are sheltering in place even if they have not been tested. Obviously the mortality rate is the key thing to watch and while that has been increasing also, it has not been increasing exponentially yet.

Those model aggregations, like the 2016 election predictions, were accurate models based upon imperfect datasets. They are not that useful. The models that called Bernie Sanders the frontrunner in the Democratic primaries as recently as 3 weeks ago were also good models based on bad datasets. There are just lots of variables that we can't quantify now. Better to deal with the reality we have which is scary enough.

[zambonir]

Yeah I have trouble seeing NFL training camps opening on time, let alone games in other leagues before August 1. Mid-June is probably the earliest leagues could try and schedule a return, 4 to 8 weeks out.

And NBA might be only league that can survive without fans. It also remains to be seen what teams are going to do about refunding season tickets. My guess is they'll try to keep the money, applied to next season, and will then experience a huge wave of non-renewals.

The second-wave possibility seems like the thing to watch. Is that based on assumption we'll attempt to go back to normal and and then have to do this all over again? If we don't go back to normal too early can it be avoided?

[phillychuck]

The second wave is probably, right now, the biggest unknown future issue. Seasonal Flu does not usually return the following year, but close varieties may return several years later. SARS-1 did not return at all. MERS seems to be year-to-year persistent. We don't know (nor can we know) how SARS-CoV-2 will react to the quarantining and the onset of seasonal change.

One thing we can be relatively sure of is that the second wave, if it comes, will be less likely to overwhelm health systems, since there will almost certainly be some herd immunity.

[Philsmania]

Why don't they call it SARS 2?

[flyers19rw]

Column: The coronavirus crisis shows what happens when a country puts its...

Pulitzer Prize winning Michael Hiltzik on how the CV is changing and challenging economists and politicians.

[Lawman]

For the sake of my sanity, I put aside my smartphone and returned to my dumb phone. Up until now I was getting messages from all different WhatsApp groups, with the latest stats, tips, news, rumors, gossip, etc....about the virus. Not to mention the bad jokes. And, of course, I found myself checking twitter way too much.

Now, I'm back to the dumb phone basics. If anyone needs me they can text or call. I have no idea what's going on and I'm blissfully ignorant of the most up to date facts and stats.

Much more relaxing.

[bkox]

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said the lockdown affecting many Americans is likely to last 10 to 12 weeks.