All Things COVID-19 College Football Impact

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howeda7 said:
It shows 1,001 for yesterday. The point is that it is creeping back up to where was a month ago. But even if this is where it plateaus, we are at an average of 760 deaths/day, and averaging over 60,000 cases per day.

For comparison, Germany had 486 cases and 4 deaths yesterday. They have a population of 83 million or about 25% of the US. If we were at 2,000 cases and 20 deaths per day, we wouldn't be having this discussion about playing sports, we'd be out doing it. Even at 20,000 cases and 200 it would be much easier. We are not going in the right direction. For things like Fall sports, it's getting late early.
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It does say 1001 now, thanks. It did say 997 when I checked earlier today. Not sure how yesterday’s gets further updated today. Only 873 today as of now.

I guess my point is that for how much cases have exploded in the last 2-3 weeks, I would’ve expected a 1200-1500 deaths upward trend by now. So far that’s not coming to fruition. 1000 is bad, but it’s not spiking bad. At that level, people might not pull the plug, regardless how poor that compares to Europe.
 

MplsGopher said:
It does say 1001 now, thanks. It did say 997 when I checked earlier today. Not sure how yesterday’s gets further updated today. Only 873 today as of now.

I guess my point is that for how much cases have exploded in the last 2-3 weeks, I would’ve expected a 1200-1500 deaths upward trend by now. So far that’s not coming to fruition. 1000 is bad, but it’s not spiking bad. At that level, people might not pull the plug, regardless how poor that compares to Europe.
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Hey that's the most positive thing I've seen you post in the last 3 months. 😂 just messin
 

ESPN - A spring 2021 college football season? What a coronavirus-impacted schedule might look like

I could see the football season being pushed off to the spring, at least in the South. The Big Ten states are doing much better that the southern states - Florida is having more than 10,000 cases a day. So it might make sense for the Big Ten to play in the fall, and for the southern states to hope things improve enough by spring. If that were to happen, would we have two champions, a fall champion and a spring champion?
 

RodentRampage said:
ESPN - A spring 2021 college football season? What a coronavirus-impacted schedule might look like

I could see the football season being pushed off to the spring, at least in the South. The Big Ten states are doing much better that the southern states - Florida is having more than 10,000 cases a day. So it might make sense for the Big Ten to play in the fall, and for the southern states to hope things improve enough by spring. If that were to happen, would we have two champions, a fall champion and a spring champion?
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Two champions ! Give trophy to everyone.
 



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One small observation that may turn out to be nothing: we know there is a periodic pattern on the daily deaths where there are 4 "high days" followed by 3 "low days" .... OK, so look at the last day of each of the "high days" period. It's almost always lower than the others.

But not this last period. The only other times you see that were on the uprise of the April surge and two weeks ago, which was followed by an uptick last week. Will this point to an upward trend in the next "high days" period, coming up next week? We'll see.
 

Hawaii Football Tells Newspaper No Players Have Tested Positive, Players Claim They Haven't Been Tested


The Honolulu Star and Advertiser published a story over the weekend with the headline, "Hawaii football players get a clean bill of heath for now." The story is light on specifics, but does feature lots of vaguely positive statements. It says that no player or coach "is known to have tested positive" and an "undisclosed" number of players were tested.

“Approximately 100 football student-athletes are working out, and none (has) tested positive since arriving on campus (two weeks ago),” officials wrote in an email to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. “The university will not disclose the exact number of tests we have arranged for, and individuals may have been tested without our knowledge.”
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If you didn't know any better, it would sound like the Hawaii football program has everything under control. However, multiple current and former Hawaii football players have responded to the Star and Advertiser tweet about the story, saying the program hadn't actually tested many players.

I guess the best case scenario here would be if... these players are lying? Nope, that doesn't make much sense. Hawaii is already behind the 8 ball considering all the travel involved for just one of their games to take place this fall.



Go Gophers!!
 

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Yesterday's Mon deaths (on worldometer) crept ever so slightly up from the last two Mon's. Will we significantly crack 1000 for today's period??
 

I'm in a whimsical mood today, so this occurred to me.

let's say they play college FB this fall, but with safety procedures.

(bear with me here)

So, let's say they have to disinfect the ball in between plays.

Center snaps the ball, it goes right through the QB's hands. (because it's wet from the disinfectant)

resulting play looks like a greased-pig contest at the county fair.

I know this is not going to happen, but I thought about it for some reason, and the ensuing mental image made me laugh. like a worst-case scenario for how football would function under covid-19 restrictions.

the more serious side of this - what type of covid-19 restrictions might be required in order to play this fall? thinking about that could really give you a headache.
 



Optimism is a bit on the uptick because pro hockey, baseball, and basketball appear to be on track to open their seasons. Now they have to start and then obviously finish. Lots of difference though between these pro teams with the ability to self-distance and a college team with over 80 players who are on campus. Not to jinx it, but Tanner is the only guy I trust not to act like a typical college kid.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
I'm in a whimsical mood today, so this occurred to me.

let's say they play college FB this fall, but with safety procedures.

(bear with me here)

So, let's say they have to disinfect the ball in between plays.

Center snaps the ball, it goes right through the QB's hands. (because it's wet from the disinfectant)

resulting play looks like a greased-pig contest at the county fair.

I know this is not going to happen, but I thought about it for some reason, and the ensuing mental image made me laugh. like a worst-case scenario for how football would function under covid-19 restrictions.

the more serious side of this - what type of covid-19 restrictions might be required in order to play this fall? thinking about that could really give you a headache.
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I think the research on surface transition is getting pretty close to saying it's a non factor, however add in the fact you often see the QB licking his fingers pre-hike in order to better grip the ball, that could make surface transmission more likely. That could be a pre-hike ritual we just retire permanently post-COVID.
 

New cases look like they're flattening out a bit, which is great, but the number is obviously still concerningly higher above April (yes, obviously the number of tests is a factor ... would be interesting to see daily new cases normalized by daily tests over time).
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New deaths though ..... guys, it's going the wrong way.
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Let's see what happens the rest of this week, and next week.

Wild speculation:
- if it keeps trending upwards through the end of next week .... I think we're going to start seeing some major plugs pulled on college athletics this fall (in addition to in-person school)
- if it holds steady in the low 1k's ... I think hands will be firmly gripping the ejection handles, but not yet pulled
- if it starts going back down, great. I think they'll try to start the pre-season and season on time, and monitor from there
 

Sparty going into 14 day quarantine. Everyone. For a couple positive tests. Team bonding?

This can only be considered bearish for Big Ten football this fall. :(

www.espn.com

Entire MSU football team in 14-day quarantine

Michigan State's entire football team will quarantine for 14 days after a second staff member and one athlete tested positive for COVID-19.
www.espn.com www.espn.com
 



Fourth consecutive day over 1100 deaths.

Next week could be very critical to school and fall college seasons starting on time.
 

MplsGopher said:
Fourth consecutive day over 1100 deaths.

Next week could be very critical to school and fall college seasons starting on time.
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Coincidentally that's about the daily average since the first day of reported deaths.
 

Can't trust the daily state-by-state death stats. No standard categorization (death from covid or with covid), or truly died that day, reporting mechanisms. Very flawed numbers without this.
 

BilldGopher said:
Can't trust the daily state-by-state death stats. No standard categorization (death from covid or with covid), or truly died that day, reporting mechanisms. Very flawed numbers without this.
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This might even be true, to a more than negligible degree ..... but what are we supposed to do?? Give up??

We gotta use whatever we got, and make the most optimal, most intelligent, most thoughtfully planned, decisions that we can, at the time of the decision making (not after the fact).

Government exists to plan and create policy and directive, and tell people what to do. And if need be, enforce penalties against people who won't comply. That's the correct definition of government.
 

All-time record number of new cases reported, yesterday. Didn't think of Friday's as a heavy reporting day.

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If you missed it - story in the Mpls Star-Tribune -

the MIAC conference has reportedly told its member schools that Fall sports, including Football, will be moved to the Spring. Nothing official yet, but the MIAC Commissioner told Reusse that "an announcement will be coming on Tuesday."

So, the final St. Thomas - St. John's football game, if it happens, will be next spring.

I suppose this works for D3 or D2.

It gets a lot more problematic for FCS and FBS. Any draft-eligible players are going to be very leery about playing a Spring season and risking injury right before the NFL draft.

I saw a tweet from Trey Lance, the Marshall, MN native and highly-ranked QB for NDSU. He was not in favor of Spring football, to put it mildly.
 

MplsGopher said:
This might even be true, to a more than negligible degree ..... but what are we supposed to do?? Give up??

We gotta use whatever we got, and make the most optimal, most intelligent, most thoughtfully planned, decisions that we can, at the time of the decision making (not after the fact).

Government exists to plan and create policy and directive, and tell people what to do. And if need be, enforce penalties against people who won't comply. That's the correct definition of government.
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We actually agree.

This one particular statistic however is strongly driving the media and policy narrative at this time. In the scheme of all information that needs to be considered by policy makers, it should be very low on the list because it is practically meaningless for national and state-to-state comparisons. That's all.

A very nuanced issue.
 

BilldGopher said:
We actually agree.

This one particular statistic however is strongly driving the media and policy narrative at this time. In the scheme of all information that needs to be considered by policy makers, it should be very low on the list because it is practically meaningless for national and state-to-state comparisons. That's all.

A very nuanced issue.
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But it seems like all the actual policy, is made at a state level, and not at a national level?
 


Excess deaths is the best metric we have, when we look backwards and try to wrap our heads around the carnage this virus has caused, far exceeding the typical year with seasonal colds and flus.

For trying to predict the short term future, and adjust policy and directives accordingly, we have to look at the trends in daily cases, deaths, and hospitalizations. That's the best we have. In my opinion.
 
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Testing experts (real ones) are urging wider use of rapid point of care tests rather than the “skewer into the brain“ PCR tests currently backlogged 1-2 weeks nationwide.

These tests may miss people with a very low viral count but importantly pick up everyone that is potentially infectious. Used before games, practices, etc.

The larger issue in my mind is the move to online classes, and the (mostly frivolous) lawsuits alleging workplace infection. Proving OSHA or CDC violation may be difficult as the standard is pretty lax. Also, there will certainly be vocal elements complaining about playing, despite low risk with pregame POC testing.
 

For whatever it’s worth (nothing), I don’t think that playing college football with no fans in the stands is going to have much effect on the spread of the virus in the big picture.

The thing that will trigger people, rightly, is if players, coaches, and/or staff get infected and cross-team infections occur.

Baseball has shown they will.


If they try to have social distanced tailgating and fans in the stands, then it will contribute to the spread of the disease.
 

MplsGopher said:
For whatever it’s worth (nothing), I don’t think that playing college football with no fans in the stands is going to have much effect on the spread of the virus in the big picture.

The thing that will trigger people, rightly, is if players, coaches, and/or staff get infected and cross-team infections occur.

Baseball has shown they will.


If they try to have social distanced tailgating and fans in the stands, then it will contribute to the spread of the disease.
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The players are almost certainly contracting the disease while socializing, not playing which should be an important distinction. Some of them simply aren’t going to be careful.
 

MplsGopher said:
For whatever it’s worth (nothing), I don’t think that playing college football with no fans in the stands is going to have much effect on the spread of the virus in the big picture.

The thing that will trigger people, rightly, is if players, coaches, and/or staff get infected and cross-team infections occur.

Baseball has shown they will.


If they try to have social distanced tailgating and fans in the stands, then it will contribute to the spread of the disease.
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More of a general question but since you brought up tailgating I replied. If people are allowed in the stadium or not, is it possible that people will tailgate regardless?
 

GopherGuy8 said:
More of a general question but since you brought up tailgating I replied. If people are allowed in the stadium or not, is it possible that people will tailgate regardless?
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I’m just talking about on land/lots that the university controls.

Would/will they allow socially distanced tailgating for fans in the U lots this year, regardless of fans in the stands? Good question, I have no idea.
 

Why do people refuse to calculate demographic risk?

Why are we acting like this is bubonic plague?
 

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