Article on NCAA and COVID19
This article prominently mentions the great work Chris Hinton’s family is doing to try to get the NCAA to establish good and consistent safety guidelines.
key takeaways:
- What each is school is doing is very inconsistent which puts players at risk
- The NCAA isn’t doing anything
- Chris’s parents have set up a parent group to try and to get some standards developed to protect the players
- Chris has great parents
- Michigan is mentioned in a good light
- Schools that require athletes to sign waivers are called out
You can't get the Rona, unless the Rona got you.
To be fair to the schools, their concerns are much more than just the athletic organizations - which are only a small fraction of the greater university communities and not the ones at higher risk. The NCAA can do what they want (which doesn't mean much), but the DoEd is really the governing body that needs to establish some universal rules here.
Given the absolute failure of our national leadership on CV-19 I wouldn't hold your breath.
It is spread via aerosol. Maybe do hold your breath.
The Department of Education doesn't govern private universities outside of very specific contexts authorized by Congress (e.g. Title IX).
You would almost certainly need to pass new legislation through Congress to impose uniform rules at a national level.
However, the NCAA creates rules for athletes that differ from rules for normal students all the time (e.g. amateurism requirements). The NCAA probably do something here, but I bet we'll see action from the major conferences first.
The DoEd can make grant funding dependent on following COVID guidelines (a long with other federal funding agencies). I know they do not have current mandate to force schools to comply, but they can work within their existing framework to help compel schools to act.
Good article, thanks for posting! Here's the money paragraph, IMO:
"Doctors advising the NCAA said there are legitimate reasons universal policies such as weekly testing could be challenging. Coronavirus tests are expensive, ranging from $40 to $240 each, so testing all athletes and staff weekly in the fall, which could cost millions, may not be affordable for Division II and III schools, and even among some smaller Division I schools."
It all comes down to money. Take some of the windfall from the various TV contracts and distribute it for testing. The NCAA, again, proves its not about the athletes - its only about lining the pockets of its various 'directors'. This is very much a competition issue - the schools that don't test, don't have to sideline a player that has C-19 - because they don't know he has it. If you want a truly competitive field, then testing and test response must be universally applied the same way.
Just another reason to dislike the NCAA...
The problem is not the NCAA (which is just the collective mouthpiece of the university ADs).
The problem is that many (most?) major universities are using sports as a cash cow and have monetized the popular sports to the point of absurdity.
Not to call you out, but what you sure saying is in complete contrast to the narrative that the majority of college athletic departments are LOSING money on a yearly basis without significant state funding and/or student fees.
The only “cash cow” aspect of Football and Hoops for most universities is the fact that they help fund all the non-rev sports. —-(This doesn’t obscure the fact that athletic spending is currently growing at an unsustainable level.)
My comment was about "major" universities, which can be taken a number of ways but I would at least count the "power schools" in there.
Regarding the revenue sports, I'm not saying that money is being used improperly or illicitly by the universities (although the amount admin overhead and other perks - such as glorified play areas for student athletes - does raise some eyebrows). My point is that they've grown so accustomed, if not dependent, upon the sports revenue and it has become so commercialized/industrialized that it is no longer truly a student activity anymore - it's a business (and outside the scope of what a university is meant to be).
It's good to remember that the NCAA directors make no important policy decisions. They handle details. On any major issue they simply do the bidding of the member schools, who are very happy that criticism gets deflected to the NCAA.
No arguments on that point, or about what CRG said prior. But if the NCAA had any leadership in its ranks, it would determine a policy based on competitive play. When someone loses an 'important' game, one that costs them a shot at a championship (in any of the various forms), because team A didn't sideline a player, the PR is going to be horrible. I mean, competitive imbalance is a thing now. It's going to be the lead story in a few months because of the NCAA's spineless, money grabbing ways.
That's exactly the type of thing the schools do not give the NCAA the authority to do. It's something potentially explosive and divisive, that may conflict with their own policies that were decided by leadership above the AD.
It's instead a problem that seems best suited for conferences to tackle, where the schools involved have a lot more in common than with NCAA schools nationwide and are used to working together.
An article in the toledo blade sums up why this is going to be so difficult.
That article was a good read. The epidemiologist quoted makes it sound irresponsible as all hell to be playing sports with the rona hanging around.
yes, pretty good article. It will be a real values test this fall for universities. I really don’t mean that in a pejorative way for either side of opening/closing CFB. It literally is a complex weighing of public health, individual health, finances (both costs like testing and costs like lost revenue), mission etc. I don’t envy the university admin.
But i hope they are transparent; and i think it will be illuminating.
That's a really thoughtful article, thanks for posting. Notice how the writer considers both sides, poses proper questions, and doesn't alienate one or the other by demonizing them. Which is what the juice and passion of political party membership is really all about - being allowed to break the other side down into caricatures of themselves, with the dumbest attributes applied, in order to allow one to be elevated above them and superior. Childish.
I do have questions for the epidemiologist, for example what is the lung damage he's talking about? It's very amorphous and ominous, but how prevalent is it? I don't like something like that being cited without context. Also the "fuck you" money quote, while being a little overdramatic, is applied to the idea that athletes may not be harmed by the virus, but are still spreading it. But what is the risk that players would present as spreaders beyond what a normal college student would pose? The schools are going back. But you can make the argument that academics are important and athletics are less so, I would agree. But in terms of their potential as a spreader, what does a college football player look like relative to a typical college student? Is it 1:1? If yes there's no more risk and no issue. If it's 2:1, then that's a problem. The details matter here, what is the data. College football is important enough (to players and fans) that a question like that needs to be asked before people make claims that it's irresponsible to resume.
I think another important line of questioning is around testing capacity. There are many people who should be tested on a frequent basis before football players. Certainly first responders, probably anyone in a profession who has significant contact with the public (store clerks, food staff, potentially teachers). It doesn’t appear we have anywhere near the capacity needed to do that. Should we be using limited tests so that athletes can be tested frequently when all of these other people can’t?
I agree. I just don't know about the testing - that in particular is so enmeshed with political dogfighting that I don't know where we are. Every single article seems slanted.
I went to get a test recently. When I googled this, there were so many locations nearby with it available that it startled me (I live in SE Michigan). I called several and they were all open with no wait, come on in. I did, took the test, cost $65 but insurance covered. Actually got covd test and they did the antibody as well, wasn't even expecting the latter. Is the testing limited?
I thought we had turned the corner on testing too. But in the last few days there have been a number of stories about shortages. If you are in an area that is not hard hit, I think there is capacity, but parts of both Texas and Arizona are struggling.
AUSTIN, Texas — Mayor Steve Adler said that Austin will no longer be testing those without COVID-19 symptoms because there are not currently enough tests for the number of people seeking them.
People in need of testing sometimes jump from provider to provider, trying to find available tests as some have supply shortages and others are fully booked. Some people report giving up on getting tested after waits proved too long. Others were able to get tested easily and quickly.
It's not just the time to get a test that's increasing: The time it takes to get results in Arizona has crept up as well. Instead of a couple days, some people now report waiting a week or more to hear whether they tested positive for the disease.
The question about whether football players will spread Covid more than typical students is very relevant and I fear the answer is obvious.
Schools like Michigan are adjusting their schedules so their students don't travel back home or to vacation spots during the semester. Football players are scheduled to travel around the country, so they would potentially spread it to places where the incidence is low. They could also potentially pick it up on trips and bring it back to campuses where it was largely contained.
If there were games next week, how many places would welcome teams from AZ, FL or TX?
While the travel raises the risk, the frequent testing players are likely to undergo reduces it. If you are willing to bring in 30,000 students from all over the country, having a couple hundred people coming in from other places (e.g. a visiting team coming to Ann Arbor or the team returning from another city, adds less than 10% to the number you introduced by bringing students back in the first place over a 12 game season.
if the level of Covid activity for both universities playing is low and you are not talking about having thousands of fans, I wonder if you do increase risk much? If on the other hand, the visiting team is in an area of higher covid activity and or you bring a bunch of fans into Ann Arbor, I suspect it would become much higher.
There are two studies so far where asymptomatic patients have been given CT scans
1) 76 asymptomatic passengers on the Diamond Princess were given CT scans and nearly half of them had lung tissue damage.
2) Another study from China where 66.7% of asymptomatic individuals had abnormalities in one lung and 33.3% had abnormalities in both lungs.
There is a lot we don't know about the virus affect on asymptomatic patients and my guess is that there is little CT Scans being done on any asymptomatic people now. Early on they were using CT scans as a way to identify who had it because there wasn't a reliable test.
There are several good articles about this and here is one: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0965-6
A response like eff you tells me this epidemoiologist is not objective at all. He clearly has an agenda. No credibility.
If that's your response to the article, he's speaking directly to you.
There were 47,000 new cases reported in the US yesterday alone up from 20,000 per day as recently as June 15. This is a complete shit show that is only getting worse. The federal response is a joke and getting worse with Pence up there yesterday claiming things are going well. There are not going to be college sports this fall, we fucked up our chance to make that happen. Pro sports will likely try and fail.
Many places across the world are getting this under control and we are not. We set a new record for daily cases yesterday, four months into this. Why the fuck can South Korea have 6 deaths per million and 246 cases per million but we have 386 deaths per million and 7,713 cases per million? Trump and the idiots he has surrounded himself with will continue to fuck this up and cost us lives along with most things we enjoy in life. This is not going to get better until we remove the motherfucker in the white house.
I expect there to be college football, simply because athletic departments can’t afford not to have it. They took one on the chin by cancelling March Madness and won’t be able to do that this time. Now, will it be a logistical mess? Possibly.
The governor of Texas who was pretty damn committed to reopening has reversed course, paused reopening and closed the bars. At some point the shear volume of the clusterfuck overwhelms other motivations. The odds of this happening relative to college football seem very high.
Speaking of bars, how long are we going to let this fuck us?
Close the bars. There is no way to operate them in the current environment. Its only a $28 billion a year industry. That is only 1.2% of the cost of the Cares act. Cut the owners and employees a check and look forward to reopening them sometime next year.
You hit on a really important economic concept here which I have been spouting off on from the beginning: marginal or incremental economics. It’s simply untenable to close society as a whole for prolonged periods of time, and full opening will quickly cause overwhelming numbers of cases (mask wearing notwithstanding). This idea of examining individual functions, the value they bring society vs the cost associated with spread/demographic risk should have been done months ago. From this standpoint even the states that locked down hard and crushed their economies (which are largely now spreading at R>1 and will have to do it again) were for the most part just as dumb about this as the ones that are on the brink now. This has been a shit show at every level from the bleach drinking Pres, to the Govs that care more about getting even with hairdressers than actual “science-based” policy (don’t get me started on plans around public education vs the societal costs of not effectively educating a population for a year), down to the individuals that can’t be bothered to wear a mask indoors to prevent their Infected spit from being breathed in by their fellow man. Not to mention a federal “stimulus” taking out more debt to cut mostly everyone a check to go spend at Amazon instead of a targeted approach like you described, what mess.
Downvoted for telling the truth LOL
For sake of comparison, my wife is from Okayama prefecture in Japan. It's 20% larger in area than Wayne County and has 1.9M residents vs. 1.7M in the house that Gratiot built. However, Okayama is very mountainous, replete with many uninhabitable spots, and quite densely populated.
Those of you who are good at geography probably realize that it's rather close to China. The Japanese are well-trained to wear masks at the sight of any cold -- the afflicted even wear them during allergy season. They were all-in on masks from the Covid get-go and quarantined about half as long as we have done in Michigan. They have had 26 cases thus far and nobody has died (say "yes" to national health insurance!).
They were stuck on 25 for about a month until yesterday. They can travel within Japan but when visiting other places where the incidence of CV is higher (like Osaka and Tokyo) they self-quarantine upon their return. This is not rocket science, folks. The problem is that about 25% of Americans have probably never taken a rigorous biology class (and Dotard loves 'em!).
Oh, by the way, my lovely wife cannot come to the US given our status as a leper colony. End of rant...
To some extent, arguments framed as “X country is doing Y thing better than the USA” (which I am often not unsympathetic to) often fly past the vast differences between us and so many other countries.
That said, there’s a vast vast gulf between us and everyone else when it comes to handling COVID that can’t be handwaved away by how much bigger we are. The way we have addressed this pandemic is nothing short of disgraceful, and for people who are tired of hearing it then I can assure them it is so, so, so much more exhausting to be living it.
I guess there are "vast differences" between the US and some other countries, but Japan has half our population in a much smaller land mass with metropolitan areas even denser than ours, so that's not a bad comparison.
You're absolutely right that our handling has been disgraceful. American exceptionalism is absolutely killing us.
Japan has 127M people in a habitable space equal to 20% of the area of California. In terms of population density the US isn't even close. A great comparison is that Tokyo and DC proper are about the same size. Tokyo has a population of 12M and DC only 600K.
Trump and his posse have completely bungled the response and will pay the price come November.
I am not a fan of POTUS either (voted for him) but not understanding how you can put this squarely on him?
Honest question: what can the president do and what does he have the power to control?
He could work more and golf less, for starters.
There is plenty of blame to go around but Trump is in charge of the administrative branch of the federal government and its performance has been abysmal. If you are in charge of something and it shits the bed it’s on you. If you don’t like that or think it’s not fair you should not have taken the job.
As for what he could have done better just look at the many countries that are doing better than we are and do what they do.
I'm not sure why you are being down-voted because that it kind of it in a nutshell. Otherwise, I am not sure why this remains a question...other than the significant lack of knowledge and understanding regarding a matter such as this that is held by the general population. (BTW, the general population is not at fault here.) Early on there was good reason for mistakes being made by even the brightest and best among the medical community. However, significant learning took place early and often and there was ample opportunity for corrections to be made. The CDC was hamstrung and road-blocked at every turn by the executive branch. (So the "This is not a political matter" was debunked from the beginning...it is political.)The fiasco that was the inadequate and inappropriate employment of testing is an early-on exhibit A of the many errors here. We have the resources and were in a position to have the best outcome of any nation...look at us-shame on us.
Organizationally, both governmentally and medically, this is primarily a federal issue. That this matter got punted to the states with so little federal direction and assistance is a total dereliction of duty.
1. in January, February and March he could have been saying we could be having a problem, rather than saying “You have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.” At the same time he could have worked with states to come up with a plan so we were ready when it did turn out to be a problem.
2. He could have been gearing up to have more PPE (he actually should have had this in each of his budgets before 2020)
3. He could have had someone in charge of testing who realized that we were going down the wrong path much earlier. With more planning earlier, mpre PPE and better information earlier from more testing, better decisions may have been made in March.
4. He could be wearing a mask and telling people they should be wearing one too.
We wouldn’t have escaped unscathed, but it is not hard to imagine a course of action he could have taken that would have pit us in a much better position today.
People down voting you for stating obvious facts.
Which is a big reason we're in such a mess with this compared to every other country on the planet. Except maybe Brazil.
Trump: only the symptom. He's not the underlying disease.
The disease of our society is what both gave him power and bends over backwards trying to validate his poor performance. The anti-fact, anti-intellectual bent of 30 to 50% of the population that's always been present in our society.
He’s not a disease, he’s a parasite
Whatever you do don't blame on the mayors of cities who allowed millions across this nation to go out nightly for weeks and protest. Not only did they not even attempt to stop them, many participated in them as well, UNBELIEVABLE. That is all it took to let the cat out of the bag for this to run rampant. Right before the protests things were actually starting to come under control.
I hope you're joking just blaming Trump. He was in no win position at all with this as if he would have came out told everyone stop the protests immediately then the outrage would have been off the charts. You could try to be at least a little bit objective. I'm a lifelong democrat and there's no way I'm that blinded. NOTHING that happens the rest of this calendar year will have a bigger impact then millions across the country nightly then these protests. I can't imagine anything coming close where that many people will be allowed again to get this close to one another, no shot.
OP, great summary of the article! Wish more would do that.
In times like these, it’s great to know some things never change.
The NCAA isn’t doing anything
It’s that consistency of spirit that will see us through this.
I thought it was BS for schools to ask athletes to sign waivers. Athletes are taking all the risk, schools are taking all the profits, and athletes have no voice. Why on earth would they waive their right to punitive damage when taking on additional risk with little real incentive? The power is shifting fast in CFB and this may be just another opportunity for athletes to seize more control as we move towards a landscape where they receive more compensation.
We all want big time college sports back, including the athletes. Like you said, the profits are crazy. I'm not an actuary, but it would be interesting to see the math of Power 5 universities absorbing the cost of insuring all these student athletes as it pertains to covid.
That said, there would still be the realities of the rest of the campus community and students - are they not entitled to added protection if/when universities are reopened?
Some really difficult, no-win decisions need to be made in the very near future.
I'm not an actuary, but it would be interesting to see the math of Power 5 universities absorbing the cost of insuring all these student athletes as it pertains to covid.
IMHO if they are not prepared to protect their athletes, just as they do medically for every other health risk of playing sports, then they are not ready to have a season.
The waivers were BS. My non-expert view is they would not hold up in court.
Leadership matters. Leadership in times of crisis matters even more.
Defining leadership at this time is really difficult considering the state vs. federal laws/rights debate, but historically, in times of war or extreme disaster, the federal government has infringed on states rights and lawmakers when the crisis had national implications.
It's becoming increasingly more obvious that we need a central, uniform policy enforced at the national level - from testing, to quarantine, to contact tracing, to mask wearing if we are to get back to "normal". Otherwise it seems we are kicking the can down the road, state by state, essentially waiting for a vaccine.
It appears as though Clemson is applying the concept of herd immunity to their football team.
if their trend continues (and antibodies provide prolonged immunity) their team will have no fear of Rona during the season.
This would give them a huge competitive edge over teams that may be missing athletes on a rotating basis due to illness.