NFHS guidelines dropped yesterday
Although these are not binding, most States follow their lead.
Don't see how competition at HS level can resume under Phases 1-2
Is that a warning from Yoda, “Not For Home, Safe?”
Our athletic director is optimistic about starting up on time this fall.
I do not share his optimism.
California had it’s most covid deaths yesterday, 2 months after safer at home started. I haven’t seen a peak in California’s data. It’s basically one, long plateau. If the goal was to flatten and extend the curve, mission accomplished, but it would be nice to see some of those downward numbers that New York, Michigan and Louisiana are seeing. The fact is, there are 50 states and just about as many approaches. Thinking there will be some national approach or response doesn’t seem likely. Some states may be ready to restart high school sports in the fall. But college sports that involve inter-state travel is certainly more complicated. I know I’m stating the obvious. California’s death number yesterday has me bummed out.
"Interesting" which states are still reporting negative numbers.
Hmmm...
The think about CA is they don't have a ton of deaths and ample testing; CA has performed 1.3M tests and have 3,300 deaths; NY has tested 1.5M and has 23,000 deaths, and MI is at 422k tests and 5,000 deaths. So for a state with almost 40M people, that's pretty impressive. And I can see how they're being exceedingly cautious because they haven't had a major flare-up yet.
The other thing about California is that our “safer-at-home” policy has really been more of a strong recommendation. Yes, businesses have been shutdown, but the cops aren’t locking people up for jogging or going to the market. I think that’s the main reason our numbers are holding steady and not declining. We did not follow the Wuhan or Italian models (complete lockdown.) I don’t know which response is ultimately going to prove to be the best. The game is still being played, so declaring a winner now would be like determining the winner of a baseball game in the 3rd inning.
This is all so dumb.
well we are screwed for high school sports...our county is lumped in with Detroit, even though we added one case in the last three weeks we will never see the light of day. All of our state tournament events end up in some Detroit district or region.
AFA travel softball goes, all NYS tourneys are cancelled thru the end of June since athletics (any outdoor activites with groups of any size greater than 2 so tennis and golf only) are banned until phase 4. Most of the state just entered phase 1 this week and we are required to stay there for 2 weeks min beofre moving onto a new phase. So we are looking at 7/4 for any sort of athletic activities.
I personnally fucking pissed that outdoor activities in groups less than 50 or so are banned. You can socially distance outside easily - let people have their lives back in the summer
The outdoor thing is silly and not backed up by the latest science. The risk of spread outside is low. You are at more risk in a small room with five people than you are in a park with hundreds
Are there actual examples of outbreaks tied to outdoor gatherings (excluding stadiums where people are shoulder to shoulder)?
Is there a source for that statistic?
I'm in New York too. I don't think people are going to adhere to the sports thing. Maybe in NYC, but I doubt the rest of the state is going to follow something that seems to make so little sense. Especially after being cooped up for 2 months
It seems like these guidelines are being written to make it impossible to go back to school and conduct school activities. The key element of this virus is that it is almost no threat to the young. According to the CDC 12 people under 14 have died of Covid across the whole country. During the same time period 89 people under 14 died of the flu. Another 59 died between the ages of 15 and 24. Overall 0.13% of the Covid deaths are those under 24. Also note the hospitalization rate for 5 to 17 year olds is 1.4 per hundred thousand. For the flu its 4.5 times higher. This is not a threat to kids. It more of a threat to the staff but even in that case 80% of deaths are those over 65 with only 7.6% of deaths occurring people under 54. Lets come up with regulations and procedures that take this into account.
How about: Temperature/Health checks of everyone before school everyday. If they fail the check we send them home and test them. If there is a positive test, we test everyone. Clean everything as often as possible. Coaches, teachers, staff wear mask and maintain 6 feet separation from students as much as possible. Come up with and fund a plan for high risk teachers/staff. Mix of year off paid, early retirement, perhaps mandatory retirement for those who have the years in but have not yet retired.
We also need a strong recommendation that kids end all contact with grandparents once school/sports start. Those relationships are going to have to go virtual for awhile. We are also going to need a virtual school option for kids being raised by grand parents or high/risk parents. The community may need to step up around this as well. If a kids wants to play sports but has a high risk parent they may need to move in with a family that is low risk. I think there are a lot of families that would step up to help in this area.
No one really disputes that it's not particularly risky to kids (even those post-COVID inflammatory diseases that have been popping up still seem pretty rare.) The issue is that children could still be significant in transmission of the disease. Also while I think temp checks (etc.) are helpful for getting activities started up, they do nothing to track presymptomatic or asymptomatic individuals, who seem to comprise a majority of "active" infections at any given time.
I get that kids are a source of transmission. I also get that health checks are only going to reduce the spread by some percentage and then testing/tracing will further reduce the spread by some percentage. We can further reduce transmission with things like mask, limits on large gatherings, ect. In combination this should slow the spread of the virus but there is still risk. I would argue that everyone under 65 taking the above measures is enough to ask from that group. The over 65 group needs to do the rest and it will suck for them. Basically stay at home until the virus is completely under control or a vaccine/treatment is developed. Removing those 65 plus from most of their interactions with the public will do the least economic damage and dramatically reduce the death rate and stress on our medical system.
NDScott, I respect your creativity and enthusiasm, but so much of what you are suggesting is untenable and unrealistic.
Temperature/health checks every day - many carriers of the virus present as having normal temperatures and as being asymptomatic
Positive test/test everyone - testing is not yet available to "anyone who wants it"
6-foot separation "as much as possible" - this is something that is needed more than "as much as possible"...and I don't see how a football team can function while maintaining a 6-foot separation
Fund a plan for high-risk teachers/staff - the federal gov't is already operating at record debt/deficit/spending; state and local gov't's and schools are seeing funding decreases. where is the money going to come from?
Year off paid/mandatory retirement - where's the money coming from? seriously, we are going to mandate retirement? that won't result in litigation.
End all contact with grandparents - what about the kids coming in to contact with vulnerable parents? what about the parents or others who may come in to contact with an infected student and then they come in to contact with grandparents and other elderly people?
Have kids move in with a family that is low risk - seriously? You really think this is a viable option?
Again, kudos to you for your enthusiasm and optimism. But there is so much that you are proposing that just isn't realistic.
The counter to this is that another year of no school or very limited school also is not realistic. The economy is basically predicated on duel income (60% of parents). None of the reopening plans are sustainable in the long term. Sorry that I am ranting in this thread - i'm letting my anger get the best of me today but the continued flow of unworkable plans from our leaders is infuriating.
In the end all these plans (which won't work, and the people making them know they won't work) mean there is no plan. Still. After three months.
One note on the six feet thing - the idea there was for the teachers/staff to do this not the students. Maintaining six feet for students and student athletes is not workable regardless of how much we limit the number of kids in schools. Trying to get them to do so is the equivalent of training your cat to use the toilet and flush. This is the type of recommendation from public health officials where the response needs to be that its not possible and we need recommendations for what to do when six feet can’t be maintained.
It's all realistic. If you interact with an at-risk person, either end your interactions with that person or don't go to school.
The mere fact that going to school might not work for some kids doesn't mean we have to cancel school for all kids. Kids that need to interact with high-risk people can take classes online.
I did not mean that to be viewed as a statistic. There is a bunch of information out there that indicates a very low risk for outdoor activity.
https://www.sfgate.com/science/article/China-study-suggests-outdoor-transmission-of-15229649.php
This study found out of 318 outbreaks in China only one (with two infections) occurred outdoors.
This post has all kinds of data and studies that clearly demonstrate that indoor spaces are the risk while outdoor is very low risk.
https://www.erinbromage.com/post/the-risks-know-them-avoid-them
Based on what's in this article there is also an argument to be made that we should be installing exhaust fans in the ceilings of rooms where people gather to generate something like 10 air changes per hour. Any HVAC engineers want to work out the most cost effective way to retrofit existing buildings to make that happen?
High school sports for schools last concern right now. Conference call with the state yesterday. State said, and don't quote me on this, but i believe my wife said $650 per student is being cut. Wasn't suppose to effect this years budget, but now they said its being applied to this years as well. Hard decisions for schools are coming.
Same here in South Carolina. My wife is a teacher and got an email from the district office and basically the budget this year is cut unless the state legislature passes something, they have cut out some programs and there are no raises for the 2020-2021 school year. At some point this will start affecting athletics as well I would think.
Here is a bullshit plan from West Bloomfield for the fall.
Hopefully parents are letting them know that this plan is a hard no. Two days of school with a bunch of worthless (particularly for K-5) online learning. This to allow half the kids in a classroom so we can get the magic six feet number. Six feet may be helpful for limited periods of time but in an enclosed space with 15 kids for 5 to 6 hours its not going to do shit. So it does little to educate our kids, does not do much to lower risk of virus spread while leaving all the problems in place for working parents that no school creates. At least it cost a lot of money. Open the school, screen on entry and test when something happens.
As for funding, a couple things. If we can come up with $700 billion for small business and $25 billion for airlines covering a $650 per student shortfall should not be a problem. $36.7 billion is what is needed to provide $650 for every K-12 student in the country. Also note that if we cut U of M and Michigan State funding to zero next year and told them they had to cover it with their endowment that we would free up funds of around $400 per k-12 student and each school would need to tap less than 10% of their endowment.
Our response to this whole thing continues to a ridiculous failure.
the only thing that will save the schools from SEVERE cuts will be to raise taxes. Take away the exemption from property taxes from religious orgs, increase the estate tax, capital gains and institue a luxury tax on high price items, increase income taxes on anyone over $1M. Maybe an additional sales tax for online purchases and delivery fees. Have to get creative.
IDK about MI, but in NYS local tax increases have been capped for almost a decade now as a result of the '08 housing crisis and subsequent recession. Schools have tightened the belt to the bone (mostly by cutting insurance benefits and pay to teachers). There is literally no other way to fund schools without HUGE contributions from the state (they don't have the $$$) and the Fed govt, who is always willing to bail out big business.
I posted this article on opening schools in another thread, but thought it was well written and has a lot of interesting references. I think we should get kids back into their development as soon as possible (It’s critical for them), especially while adults are still somewhat confined so that any C19 spread from kids initially is terminated at the nuclear family. Selective exposure of the lowest risk groups first makes sense here, especially when the cost to society (and disproportionately to kids from lower income families) of having schools closed is so big. We’re in a good place in the US bc we can also watch what happens abroad with schools before summer break ends and a final decision needs to be made. For now, it seems like small class size summer programs (especially mostly outdoor) for younger kids should be open.
It just feels like we’re half pregnant on the end game. Either we’re incrementing back to normal, building immunity of kids and prime working age adults, while protecting the most vulnerable so that hospitalization numbers don’t overwhelm the system, or we’re sheltering in place waiting for a cure or vaccine. We shouldn’t and can’t be doing both.
Kids and young adults have virtually zero relative risk. They should be back at school. If certain faculty and staff are at risk accommodations should be made.
We have beaten the curve. There will be ebbs and flows in that and our media will be sure to highlight the tragedies that occur. People at risk should choose how they wish proceed and accommodations should be made for them.
If we continue to hide out at home society will collapse.