Coach O says "most" of LSU football team has had COVID

He followed the Clemson playbook. Everyone was infected early enough that they don't have to worry about it, so none of his starters will be sitting out do to quarantine.

Best part of article:

"Hopefully that once you catch it you don't get it again," he said."I'm not a doctor. I think they have that 90-day window, so most of the players that have caught it we do feel like they'll be eligible for games."

And who exactly is NOT going to get COVID over the next 20 years?  As Fauci recently made clear, there is every reason to expect that COVID is permanent and will be with us no less in duration than the common cold or flu.  

One day digital anthropologists are going to dig up this thread and ask...so they thought they could hide from colds or flu for the rest of their lives.  The entire LSU team getting COVID in 2020 or 2030 is not news.  Its just today's reality.    

It's pretty clear at this point that certain conferences looked at the data and said "there's a lot of uncertainty about the long-term implications of COVID-19, let's wait and figure it out" and others looked at other data and said "reinfection rates seem low, so might as well expose everyone and bank on nobody getting adversely ill".  And at this point, it's not even a morality judgement anymore; conferences listened to what their members wanted and that's how they responded.

But the Big Ten didn't shut down.  They've been practicing just like LSU.  Seems like there are just differences in precautions teams are taking.  Michigan is doing it well based on their numbers, some others aren't (including OSU and some other teams that aren't reporting numbers - they could have had just as many infections as LSU, TTU, etc).

At this point, in most young people, it looks very much like a common flu bug with the vast majority of cases not even becoming symptomatic. All the heart sign spooks they've tried to gin up have been misleading at best and outright fraudulent and retracted at worst. There's no reason to treat this coronavirus like a black box. If you want to shut down football and life for 20 years so we can figure out if there really are any long term effects, that's poor risk management. Given the context of the virus and similar viruses, there's no reason for this

I've seen no reports of anyone being admitted to the hospital, and certainly none on ventilators.

Reports are that up to 10-20% that have been tested (albeit on a small sample) for myocardial injury, appeared to show some signs.  That number has been way lower apparently for NFL and other sports so it's likely much lower, but very important to screen for it.

People are not flying blind just because the PSU doctor misstated some things. There are LOTS of leagues playing and sharing the short term effects.

And this is an RNA coronavirus, of which there are several others that infect humans.  There are rare cases of ME/CFS and longer term issues that other viruses cause.

The overwhelming consensus of doctors and scientists that have opined believe that if young people are appropriately scanned for heart issues and listen to their bodies, they're fine to play.

Saying there's a lack of information on this like saying we don't have any information on 30+ years of cell phone use.  While it's true, at some point you have to accept some levels of risk.  There could be an exponentially greater risk of cancer as cell phone usage exceeds 30 years, and some people choose not to use cell phone because of it, but is the chance and the cost enough to not use cell phones?  Most of us think not.

And when individual players can opt out and stay on scholarship, why would we prevent those who want to play from playing?

It's true obviously that we don't know the long-term effects of Covid (because the pandemic is only officially nine months old) but that's not much of a justification in itself to shut things down.  Generally speaking, if you don't show short-term symptoms from a virus, you don't go on to show longer-term symptoms later on.  It's typically the people whose immune systems are battling it out with the virus right now that might be compromised health-wise going forward.

Young people overwhelmingly show few effects from this virus.  Per the Washtenaw data, people in the 18-24 age group make up 22 % of all cases but just 2% of hospitalizations and 0% of deaths.  The argument to restrict their activity has little to do with their health.  It's about the possibility that they might serve as vectors of infection.  That reasoning isn't without some validity, but when you are talking about cancelling a season and possibly changing a guy's whole future career plans (imagine being a senior who has waited to start), and when you've already decided that it's OK for students to be on campus (40,000 non-athletes, most of them rarely tested, are likely to produce more infections than a group of 110 students who are regularly tested), it's pretty tough to accept it.

Eesh...but this is a sport where we know guys get CTE and still play so nothing is really surprising anymore

To make sure that the basketball is never even half as successful as the football team? That's the only justification for Will Wade I can think of

The process of evaluating how leagues (and university’s) have responded in deciding to play or not play is still in the formative stage. The more reports like LSU’s and Texas Tech’s the better the Big 10 looks. 

Whether it was encouraged by the coaches or not would be interesting to know. I suspect it didn't have to be. If I were a 20 year old athlete on a team with a legit shot at national championship I'd make sure I wasn't sitting on the bench feeling just fine but Covid-Postive mid-season.

The best way to make sure that doesn't happen is to get it out of the way.

I still find it odd how many of you all don't accept that a very large number of people are going to get this virus eventually one way or the other, especially young people who can't hide in home offices like we older folks can.

per what I've read on these here interwebs, we are all virologists now. I got mine in the mail yesterday.

Sweden did it right, despite the false info out there.  

It’s amazing how some people here ignore science and worship a guy who couldn’t spell Michigan, let alone get into UM. 

America only cares about you if you make money or spend money

Elderly and sick people are not a priority because they don't participate in the economy. Broken country