Coronavirus (Sports-Related and General)

The analogy that I thought of is that in the absence of speed limits, I could choose not to drive at 100 mph, so as not to endanger myself or others on the road at the same time as me. But even with my actions and the actions of others who are of a similar mind, we wouldn't have acceptable risk. A law requiring people not to drive an excessive speeds is required. Sure, there are still people who speed, but not as many as if we had no sped limits, and the risk is lower for everyone who is on the road.

That would just be replacing one bureacracy with another. If anything it should lead to the privatization and professionalization of college sports (football and basketball, anyway). Any bailout will probably be needed more for the universities themselves (since athletics only supports athletics, except intangibly/symbolically).

I don't have kids, just teenage nephews, but to me the long-term view is 18 months of suffering for a better world in their lifetime. Until there is a vaccine neither approach is going to be pleasant or sustainable.

Exactly, I don't impugn your motives at all, phillychuck. I appreciate your role as a moderator on this forum where we can respectfully disagree and engage in informed and intelligent discussion.

I think we will indeed eventually have intermediate solutions, and that we won't have to wait for an "all clear" to resume some activities. I do think it's too early to consider reopening things yet since things are still evolving. It doesn't seem that we have peaked yet, and we are also still learning about the virus/disease, the impacts on our medical and other infrastructure, and the effectiveness of the measures that have been taken. It seems to me that being more cautious while we are still learning is the best approach, especially since we have places where the medical system is being severely burdened now, and the medical people are at risk.

If we were to learn that a near-worst case scenario was likely where the current measures would have to be in place for many years, we will have to have some hard discussions about how we will proceed as a society. I think we are capable of making the hard choices. We chose to send many thousands of good young men to their deaths during World War II for the greater good.

Some may chortle at me saying this, but I think the government is better at bureaucracy than the private sector which is driven by profit motive. A government bureaucracy is driven by the bureaucracy's mission, although it may execute that mission in a sloppy, haphazard manner which is marked by occasional proverbial "waste, fraud and abuse."

And yes, it will be interesting to see if the NBA's development league becomes a bigger deal and if the NFL starts a player development system if that comes to pass.

My wife and I met too late for us to realistically have children and sometimes that saddens us. However, at the same time, I am glad that we are not bringing children into the world we live in. Besides, there are too many people for this planet to handle.

There's no GOOD reason why an American-developed vaccine could not be on the market much sooner. This would require a decision to move to human trial more rapidly than usual, and to shorten the times of such trials. Example: University of Pittsburgh has in hand an experimental vaccine that has shown efficacy in animal trials. So, let's find out if it's safe in humans - how long need that take? Is it toxic? Short-term trial. Is it mutagenic? Again, mass-dose tests in animals don't take very long - and long-term human issues can't be determined in trials anyway. Then, is it efficacious? It seems to me that once safety is determined, you can inoculate people, and measure efficacy over time - for instance, inoculate health-care workers (if you know it's safe), but maintain current protective measures - if infection rates go down or go to zero, you have a winner - quickly.

PC - I would agree that we need to find ways to return to some normalcy - but with a large caveat: Most large gatherings (thousands of people in one place) are, more or less, for entertainment purposes. I would argue that large public entertainments should be the last things we worry about getting back online. This would be concerts, sporting events, movie theaters, etc. We all used to get by just fine without attending these things - and I'm not talking about centuries ago, but about in my own lifetime, growing up in rural PA a long way from the mass venues.

We can get people back to work (in most kinds of business) with what I would characterize as acceptable risk - but we don't need to have large groups of people gathering in close quarters just to be entertained or amused. We just don't.

Religious gatherings will present a special challenge, because for many people, actually being there and participating is important, is fundamental to their beliefs. It would be harder to keep the churches closed for an extended period than to shut down arenas, theaters, etc.

The issue with Trump is not that everything he suggests is necessarily wrong. It's that he generally doesn't know what he's talking about - so some comments may be OK, but a lot are very wrong. Hydroxychloroquine, for example - his promoting this is causing shortages that will kill Lupus sufferers, but he just will not shut up. He doesn't give a damn about the impact on Lupus patients - or he doesn't comprehend, which in a President is as bad (or worse). With Trump, the issue is also the reality that we had to go through several weeks when he was (or to a large degree, may still be) in denial about the nature of the problem here, and his inability to think long-term about much of anything. He's been characterized as a toddler, and to a significant extent, he seems to function at that level. It's all about him, it's all about now. As a result, necessary measures are delayed, are half-hearted when finally agreed to... and silly side trips to satisfy irrational whims are mixed in.

But yes, over time we need to strike a balance between risk reduction and "everything else." Personally, I come down on the side of keeping a range of completely non-essential entertainment businesses shut down. Arenas, theaters, amusement parks, casinos (gasp!), etc. We can do without mass entertainments for a while; people might even remember how to read!

And, to return to where I started, bend the FDA rules for testing/approving vaccines. Federally indemnify producers and those who administer such vaccines, if necessary. Apply the Shakespearean solution to ambulance-chasing lawyers who might attempt to profit should a vaccine prove (in the long run) to be less than hoped. But get moving. Or else resign ourselves to the fact that the vaccines that we end up using will be Chinese intellectual property.

I think you are setting up a straw man. Most people aren’t suggesting we shut down the whole economy for several months. I do think large groups have to be banned until we have a vaccine. Does anyone believe that Mardi Gras isn’t the reason Louisiana is a hot spot? The two political conventions aren’t going to happen, sports and concerts aren’t happening. But stores and restaurants will be open with more distancing. Travel will continue to be a problem. The Courts can’t be closed for more than a couple of months, and my daughter has to go a couple of days a week for sentencing, bail reductions and such to clear the prisons, most of this is by teleconference. But we are going to have to have trials. 5here will be social distancing practices at courthouses, too.

But as to politics, I’m okay with dying, but not to save this corrupt economy. God forbid millionaires and billionaires are losing money. The economy changing is a good thing and I hope we don’t go back to normal oh and lastly, it’s not just about seniors dying. Lots of younger people and we are doing terrible harm to the medical and first responder communities.

I agree with your time estimates, it's just that every person who speaks publicly about the timeline has said 18 months, at least those that I've heard who were in a position to know these things. A J&J rep said that they were still expecting mid-year next year with their traditional vaccine even with accelerated protocols.

Not a problem, thanks for the magnanimous reply! I think we're all running a bit hot right now.

I am not anti-government by any means. To me we're basically living with the consequences of Reagan's "I'm from the government and I'm here to help" joke, with the compounded impact of a chief executive who is both anti-government and bad at governing. I just don't think it needs to run college sports (or any sports). But obviously the D of E already has a lot of impact on college sports. Truth be told if we have the same people in charge come January it wouldn't surprise me if they suspended Title IX, which is obviously going to be a huge factor in deciding which non-revenue sports survive in 2021 or 2022 (assuming there's no football).

Always glad to hear your intelligent, articulate voice SF!

I'd disagree with certain points here...I'm not worried about Mark Cuban or Jeffrey Lurie losing money on their teams. I'm worried about marginal athletes losing their entire careers, I'm worried about people employed by symbiotic businesses losing their entire incomes, I'm worried about students and teachers and professors relying on what is essentially a counterfeit educational remote-learning model (at least in terms of accountability and legitimate educational support) for another year(?) or so, and I'm worried about what happens to social organizations and churches that are ESSENTIAL features of our communities if they can't assemble. And I'm not in favor of dying for any economy, no matter how corrupt. I'm OK with dying for the people who will be irreparably damaged by a long shut-down. We are already seeing a large spike in suicides...already. And suicides do a boatload of peripheral damage to the lives of friends and relatives (spoken from personal experience...). And, honestly, I'm worried about social unrest. I saw two people almost come to blows today about whether one should be wearing a mask in a particular situation. It was seriously nasty--people have lost their patience. As a scientist who often deals with unanticipated consequences of even small changes in regulations, I'm predicting that the negative unintended consequences of this shutdown will be enormous. I'm not sure that the cure (LONG-TERM) would not be worse than the disease.

I am also resigned to the fact I'm probably not going to convince anyone in any decision-making capacity of this, and all the decision makers (even Trump's people) are extremely risk-averse, so I'm anticipating they keep the lid on until there are almost no existing cases, as the NBA doc suggests. He's not just speaking for the NBA, he's speaking with the voice of almost all administrative risk managers and health-care people (at least those I know). I know you have all dealt with those people--I do seminars for them, and they still don't get that there is no such thing as a risk-free world.