MHSAA to start Fall Sports on Schedule
Contingency plans are in place in case things go sideways; Fall sports could still be moved to the spring and played alongside the Spring sports schedule. Protocols for safety to all schools to be released in the coming weeks
I’m good with planning on things starting on time worth plans on what to do if that is not possible.
I am, too, and I'm trying to find the line between "forget it, shut everything down until a vaccine" and "forget it, kids will be kids and there's little risk, let them play" - but this article doesn't get there. To me, under you define that line, this isn't a plan, it's just an approach (we'll play until we can't).
Maybe MHSAA hasn't gotten there yet, but saying "COVID-related developments" means 0. "If all fall sports are suspended..." who's doing the suspending? When does it get suspended? When X # teams decide not to play? When X% of student have positive tests?
Somebody below mentions that they're leaving this to the governor, which is always a possibility, but is a pretty pathetic way to do one's job if there's really no more to it than what the article lists.
Is it really for the MHSAA to decide/understand what % of cases/infection rate/death rate leads to no sports?
Honest question. They don't have access to the experts that the government does, I presume. The government, in my mind, should be laying out more specific guidelines.
It's difficult for the MHSAA to develop policy for such a range of communities, I'm sure. It makes sense for them to rely on the Governor's mandates and recommendations, while also saying "we aren't swapping seasons; we will consider moving Fall sports to early spring and pushing spring into summer."
I don't see why the MHSAA should decide what is safe and what isn't - they just have to react to the government guidelines, or be more safe than the guidelines, which makes sense to me.
Not placing blame on anyone. These are all crappy decisions to have to make.
I get that it's rough for kids who could miss the season, but could we get the schools open and functional first and then move to sports?
We're already approaching a world where Disney World, LegoLand, Liquor Stores and Casinos are open, but schools are not.
So ...... this would simply be in line with that. It's like the plot of some sci-fi dystopia.
If schools are open, I don't need the liquor store as much... sort of a double edged sword.
(Stress the part "as much"....)
Bars and movie theaters. California, where I live, basically sacrificed in-person schooling this fall to open bars and movie theaters last month. Priorities!
It's pretty effed. The idea of remote kindergarten is just ridiculous.
What got me were the strip clubs. Social distancing runs counter to the strip club experience...from what my friends tell me.
And none of those places (excepting maybe liquor stores, I don't see an issue there) should be open yet.
Maybe so ... but they are open.
Many people in 2020 like to tear down statues of people in older times. We feel comfortable judging people from the past.
100 years from now, there's going to be people in 2120 who look back at 2020 and make a whole lot of judgments about US. There will be some "figurative statues" torn down then as well.
I don't disagree with that, though we may disagree on what those future things may be.
That is a fair response, yes. :-)
Nearly every country in Europe and the Western World has opened schools without any issues. So, what's the problem in this country?
Kids may be more than likely asymptomatic like all younger people but they still spread Covid like other asymptomatic cases.
The source of the infection explosion can be seen clearly in the numbers from June. As Kliner told the Knesset, 1,400 Israelis were diagnosed with the disease last month. Of those, 185 caught it at events such as weddings, 128 in hospitals, 113 in workplaces, 108 in restaurants, bars, or nightclubs, and 116 in synagogues, according to Kliner, while 657—which is to say 47 percent of the total—were infected by the coronavirus in schools.
That's not what I am hearing about younger K-12 students as they are not transmitters of COVID in these European countries. You are using adult Israelis...young K-12 students do not get COVID in the workplace nor bars/nightclubs.
You missed my point.
I guess you didn't read to the end which was the whole point """according to Kliner, while 657—which is to say 47 percent of the total—were infected by the coronavirus in schools."""
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/israel/
Look at the Israel's daily cases and you can see the affect of them opening schools on June 3rd - two weeks later.
Also there is very little studies done on children because they tend to be asymptomatic but here is info from Sweden: "Seroprevalence surveys conducted by the Swedish Public Health Agency found that the antibody prevalence in children/teenagers was 4.7% compared with 6.7% in adults age 20-64 and 2.7% in adults age 65-70. The relatively high rate in children suggests there may have been significant spread in schools"
Also this from recent hotspots:
Arizona: 11% of total cases in those younger than 20.
California: 8.4% in those younger than 18.
Mississippi: 9.4% in those under 18.
Washington state: 11% in those 20 and younger.
Tennessee: 4.5% of cases involving those 10 and under, and 11% for those 11 through 20.
Texas - Harris County 11.4% under 20 and Children 9 and younger 4.1%.
Is this a serious question?
If so, the problem is due to mismangement & incompetence at the highest level, we have cases, hospitalizations and daily deaths 10-100x what European countries are currently experiencing. They crushed the curve; we did not.
To pick just one example:
- Germany (pop 80 million) is averaging about 400 cases and 10 deaths a day;
- Arizona (pop. 7 million) is averaging about 4000 cases and 75 deaths a day.
That makes it much easier for Germany etc to do activities like schools.
Good luck with the anti-maskers. You just pissed them off with facts and stuff.
How about factoring the Arizona summer heat, 105 to 115 deg nearly every day which keeps people indoors nearly all day while Germany has a summer climate like Michigan which allows much more outdoor activity. Breathing the recycled air vs fresh air.
Granted, our society is not as disciplined as it should be which also accounts for the surge in our country.
I don't think that supports your idea like you think it is. By that line of logic, the scorching summer heat of Arizona keeping everyone indoors should be helping knock down cases there as everyone pseudo-quarantines themselves. Maybe you're talking about multi-unit housing when speaking on recycled air, but that still wouldn't explain all of the explosion in cases in the south. NYC got cases under control in a super high population density area
Yeah, just ignore all relevant context to make your question sound legit. Way to go, guy.
Psst; most of the rest of the western world got their shit together and got Covid under control. The US? Uh... file not found.
Another lockdown won't solve the problem here in the US.
Why?
Well, probably the opposite of '73 is trying to imply. It won't work because Americans have shown they won't adhere to recommended guidance from science for a litany of reasons. Either because masks are tyranny, or it's tyranny to have to quarantine, or because it's a conspiracy theory, or because they trust the president over those tricky scientists. So that's why a lockdown won't work. It's because we'll immediately undo any gains we make because we are not a smart country
Because unless we greatly improve testing (e.g. figure out how to get results in less than 48 hours rather than more like a week) contact tracing can’t keep numbers down when we reopen and absent more discipline from a segment of the population, we know we can’t count on people’s self discipline to keep the numbers down. We are also unlikely to be willing to endure a shutdown long enough to drive the numbers far enough down.
I personally have pretty much resigned myself to the fact that we aren’t getting this under control until 1 or more of the following happen:
1. We get better testing. Ideally some of the low cost home solutions that a wide variety of people are talking about that would give much faster (if not quite as accurate) results for many more people. (This is my biggest short term hope). It could also be moving to more pooled testing, but this will result in lots more short quarantines (as non-infected folks are in positive test pools), than people are likely to stand for.
2. Better therapeutics. We are probably already seeing some benefits here now, but we’ve still got pretty limited supplies of remdesivir
3. A vaccine
Well, nearly every country in Europe and the Western World has done a vastly better job of containing the virus that we have. So that's the problem in this country
Seems.... optimistic, but can't hurt to plan.
I know my old school football team is busy out with their conditioning. Plus they've also recently did a fundraiser like a season might happen.
Kudos on the new posting style. Please keep it up. If it is not clear, this is genuine, not sarcastic. I suspect much of the board would prefer this version of ThePonyConquerer.
NYS just released a 2 part plan.
Plan A: start fall season 9/20ish, no fall playoffs. Winter begins 1/1
PLan B (when shit hits the fan, as it likely will): Winter sports in Jan-Feb, Fall sports Mar-April, Spring sports May-June.
It'll be interesting to see how the schools handle any breakouts that happen during fall camps. I do think sports like XC and tennis could survive easier with restrictions so I wouldn't be surprised if those seasons go on with fewer limitations. I do feel awful for the kids who might miss their senior years because of this pandemic. My honest hope is that this all goes forward without a major snag.
I agree with your sentiments 100%, unfortunately, humans have so far proven to be the snag.
I can’t remember if I read the comment on here or on twitter but the MHSAA is waiting for governor to shut things down. They’re going to make her make the decision.
Her Royal Highness does love to shut things down.
As a non-Michigander, I don't get why so many people are so pissy with Gov Whitmer. Would you rather be Georgia or Florida? I gather people are mad because she closed things down...and it worked? But people are mad because they got told to do something they didn't want to do?
Nursing home residents disagree, the one's that survived anyway. Yes would rather be Georgia or Florida.
There is a growing body of evidence that suggests that the strongest drivers in nursing homes was community spread not specific policies. Since most of the employees at nursing homes were from the community, this isn’t particularly surprising.
If you are a nursing home patient, you didn’t want to be in Michigan, NY, NJ, CT etc in March and April. Today you wouldn’t want to be in Texas, Florida, Arizona etc.
Coronavirus cases in Florida’s nursing homes and assisted-living facilities have accelerated sharply in recent weeks, more than doubling among both residents and staff and causing large outbreaks even in Central Florida, which once had been largely spared from virus’s devastation.
While death rates are still relatively low in local long-term care facilities, some fear that will soon change, given the rate of infection and the vulnerability of elderly, frail residents.
“The one thing we know about this virus is that the deaths are a trailing metric,” said Brian Lee, executive director of the national advocacy group Families For Better Care. “As the cases surge higher, the deaths will follow. And right now we’re seeing the virus spread like wildfire.”
https://www.kxan.com/investigations/81-positive-covid-19-cases-confirmed-at-round-rock-nursing-home/
ROUND ROCK, Texas (KXAN) – San Gabriel Rehabilitation and Care Center, a nursing home inRound Rock, has confirmed 81 positive cases of COVID-19 — nearly all found in the past week.
It's unbelievable half the country is convinced "it happened there, but it won't happen here."
I actually have an honest question, though I am totally willing to say "mistakes were made." I'd hope we all could and move on from it. It's not like anyone would purposefully kill people in nursing homes.
What exactly are the details of this claim?
Is it that patients with COVID that didn't need hospitalization were sent home? Yes, home is a nursing home and that's dangerous and in hindsight was wrong. Though, if that's the case, I suspect the reasoning was "If you aren't keeping me in the hospital, then I'm going home" and home was a nursing home. I suspect hospitals needed to keep beds free from people that didn't need them... so, if someone isn't admitted to a hospital, how do you stop them from going home?
I'm sincere in my questions.
Outside of that, I wish Whitmer bashers would be sincere in the idea that they are clinging to this one thing to justify their hatred that stems from a myriad of less justifiable reasons.
Answering strictly informationally -
Because she went further than anyone else, and we are still above the national average for deaths relative to our population (7th overall). To say unequivocally that "it worked" is a difficult argument to make. The numbers are better now, they were worse a couple months ago, we don't know if it will look better or worse this coming winter.
Because her behavior at times closer resembled a stern mom rather than a governor. Which I'll acknowledge may be the right tactic in some cases, but it's not for everyone, and so some people are justifiably, "pissy". She was elected to be the state's governor, not its mom.
Because Ohio is still behind MI for cases, deaths, and rules. With a higher population and more population density. This isn't so much a reason to be mad at Gov. Whitmer as much as a very simple stat to suggest while it looks better right now, she sure hasn't gotten this whole virus "right".
Because she and/or her husband have in a couple cases tried to ignore her own rules.
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This whole thing has been challenging. I wish every day that the world could all be at 0 infected and 0 deaths, and I'd be perfectly happy to make a yearly pilgrimage to bow before her, build her statues, and whatever else if she could accomplish that feat. That she can't means we have to judge her on what's in front of us. No one is doing this perfectly, that's humanity. I'm holding judgement until at least next year when we can look at a much bigger picture - I don't care about this week or the first months, or the lower infected now (thank goodness) -- I care what the results are as we move forward. Do we handle things well opening back up if/when there's a vaccine? Do we distribute the vaccine intelligently? What if there's no vaccine this fall? There's a LOT more governing to do before her final report card comes in on Covid.
On the record I'd LOVE if she got an A+ on that report card. Damn the politics, (because I'll admit I didn't vote for her, and won't in the future), this is about lives, and anyone who hopes for any leader's failure in a crisis just because of politics is pretty disgusting.
Yes, that is true (I posted that a few days ago). I know pretty well a couple people at the MHSAA and this is their plan. They are going to put everything in place to be able to play. They will not shutdown prior to the season starting independently that will have to come from Lansing.
Now one of the individuals I know did say that they (the MHSAA) will shutdown if cases start to spike. He’s optimistic the season starts. He did say he’d put the chances of the season finishing without any breaks in the fall around 50%. He could foresee starting the season, playing a few games (the ones before school starts) and then being shutdown. Then in March teams will get 2 weeks of camp and we will pick up where we left off in the schedule. Baseball and other spring sports will then be pushed back and will conclude in the summer.
This is pretty much what the OHSAA (Ohio) said, they are starting Fall sports practices on 8/1 and plan on starting the season on time. However, the Governor has yet to declare football, field hockey soccer or cross county cleared for competition, meaning they can practice, but cannot compete against other schools. OHSAA has basically said they are not in control of allowing or cancelling fall sports, that will be the Governors call.
So basically those in charge - basically dont really want to be in charge or viewed as the "bad guy" related to making a tough decision and want someone else to point at if it should become obvious trending cases should make it inevitable.
I do not agree with everything about the approach out of Lansing by any means (boating/outdoor work - construction/greenhouses etc could have been allowed to start earlier), but I will give credit to someone that is actually willing to make the tough call.
I wonder if not having sports in the fall might actually get people to conceed to wearing a mask in public spaces? It would be great to keep schools, sports and the economy moving along...but I think connecting those points may be a bit too complex for many people....especially those who still consider this a hoax.
It seems to me that it would be the right thing to let the Gov make the call if you're the MHSAA. You either let the government make the call or you adopt MORE cautious policies. The MHSAA doesn't have epidemiologists on staff. The proper thing for them to do is follow the guidelines of the government with regards to allowed activities.
I think that making this decision is exactly deciding that they aren’t scared to be “the bad guy.” The easy decision in this case would be to cancel the season. This to me shows a willingness to take heat, not the other way around.
It may have been other places, but it was definitely here too. It’s interesting, if you look at the data, Michigan is in better shape than most states. Test positivity below 5%, hospitals in good shape etc. Covid exit strategy lets you compare a number of key metrics like: case positivity, new cases per million per day, transmission rate, etc. https://www.covidexitstrategy.org/
Unfortunately numbers are trending upwards. Ideally Michigan would be aggressively testing and contact tracing. It appears that was the Governor’s intent and it was helping to tamp down on hotspots as they emerged. Unfortunately increasing testing times is making that strategy less effective and it’s not clear that the governor has much ability to address that problem.
That unfortunately means that unless there is really good adherence to social distancing and mask wearing more of an uptick seems likely. The conservativeness of the governor’s approach put the state in a reasonably good place, but if the numbers tick up, that conservativeness suggests she is likely to pull the cord on sports more quickly than others might.
Test positivity has to be under 3% for Big Gretch and Doc Kalduhn. We are not in good shape right now.....per them.
And you can about guarantee she pulls the plug on school/sports around mid August.
I suspect she will allow a return to these activities the morning of November 4th.
I suspect if Michigan was at 3% and trending down, she’d be less concerned. Unfortunately it is trending up. And as I noted, she has limited control of 1 lever at her disposal (e.g. people in Michigan exercising some self control) and almost no control over the second lever (getting test results back quickly enough to do adequate contact tracing). It is hard to look at those three factors in a way that doesn’t suggest that all the metrics are most likely to trend worse,
I really doubt she is having fun making these decisions. I really doubt these decisions are to get back at the Rs in the state. I really think she is making these decisions to save lives, not just to piss people off. They do piss people off, but that's what happens when you make hard decisions. I don't envy any of the people in big decision making position (her, School Supers, etc...), they are going to have unhappy people no matter what they do.