The cynic in me says that the colleges don't care as much about long term effects on players since they're only in the college for a couple of years. Same with individual professionals. With a few rare exceptions, most players are only under contract for a short period of time so they don't care about the players enough to let it get in the way of their profits for the upcoming year.

SI

I think you are kidding, but trust me when I say New Yorkers coming to Jersey is a much bigger problem. Has been for years.

Everything I know about New Jersey is Bon Jovi and The Sopranos.

As far as I can tell, everyone there is part of the mob, family of the mob, or angelic-voiced hair bands.[*]






* I'm more than half certain that this is the official state motto. I'll correct this after a quick Wikipedia search if I'm wrong.

lol.

come visit some time. It is an amazingly beautiful and diverse state.

There are not studies on long term damage. The virus is less than a year old. Most people who have contracted it have been free of it for 3 months.

It will take years to know whether damage caused by the virus increases your risk long term for heart attack, stroke, and other cardiovascular issues. That thing where people can't taste or smell? It's something that damaged the brain. We don't know how long or what damage has been done there. We know many of the most serious respiratory illnesses leave permanent lung damage and it appears COVID-19 is on the same path.

Maybe it's all good but we just don't know if getting this means you're at a high risk of postencephalitic parkinsonism or early onset dementia down the road.

I want to be cynical & agree, but I just think if the info is there it would have been publicized. Low level medical professionals don't give a shit about HIPAA etc in 2020.
Yep, we have no idea if it will cause long term damage. So why are supposed to assume it will instead of waiting to see? (And why aren't there any studies by now?!?)

I think the reason there are no long-term studies by now is that those studies take years. The virus hasn't been around for years. It's literally impossible to do long-term studies in a short-term timeframe.

You mean like with the head injuries and CTE? The leagues dont care about the player's long term health unless they are forced to

Follow Ups on asymptomatic patients is also tricky (have to find them first in an organized way and not having them monitored continously would be an issue) and as with many, many other things it is a matter of ressources. A lot of which are still invested in figuring out why it kills and how to prevent it, then next also into what happens with recovered patients from hospitals or even sick-at-home (and the outlook here is not stellar...)

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2...d-19-infection

From lung scarring to heart damage, COVID-19 may leave lingering marks | Berkeley News



Once you "wait and see" while going ahead, you have already decided. And can't take it back, if it turns out to be a bigger problem.

I am not going to claim i know what the right decision is (Football being played or not DOES have other ramifications as well, it isn't just a luxury), but basing it on "we don't know yet so we might as well go ahead" seems flawed as a basis for any decision.

And is partly what landed us in this mess in the first place. Plenty of warning signs were ignored along the way in favour of assuming a lack of evidence meant a certain thing isn't happening (like asymptomatic spread or even cases being a major issue or mask efficiency being doubted because it had not been proven 'in vitro' or for this specific virus etc).
People do have a tendency to go with the glas half full option.

And while i am not entirely cynical on the issue, whatever happens with these college athletes is not exactly an open book or independently monitored.

I get the feeling that we're going to be seeing more stories like this:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...tally-n1233810

No idea why people suddenly think that wearing a mask during a full blown pandemic is an invitation to lose all form of common and decency.

Do people do this when they see a "No shoes, no shirt, no service" sign?

Oh God yes. Ever damned Summer (especially when you were raised in a Shore town).

I'm afraid you've been blocked from Newsweek.

Bastards.

Our school system finalized parent choice of in-person instruction or online instruction, but Jefferson County (Louisville) appears ready to adopt an online-only start to the school year. Biggest school system in Kentucky.

We're still not sure what to do, but school doesn't start until August 26th so we'll see how it goes. Leaning toward in-person because you can switch to online at any point, but if you start online, you are stuck in it until the next semester.

We are now about 3 weeks removed from the beginning of the ascent of the number of daily infections. We are now clearly seeing a resulting rise in the number of daily deaths from the stable numbers that we had previously been seeing.

I had to stop in Publix briefly today and I think for the first time everyone I saw had a mask on. Walmart I see has instituted a mandatory mask policy too I see. Yeah progress?

Meanwhile our Governor thinks the children are suffering in every way you can think of by staying home so he wants all school districts to submit plans to the Secretary of Education on a school reopening policy that must include a 5-days a week in school and remote learning plans before they can reopen.

Mandating masks seems to have the desired effect of getting a greater percentage of people wearing masks, but there doesn't seem to be any appetite in either the business or government to enforce it against those who don't comply. I think the win is that you get a vast number of people wearing masks and just roll your eyes/stay away from the a-holes.

But just the fact that a mask mandate itself definitely increases compliance underlines how irresponsible Trump and his administration's (and state officials) messaging on masks has been. If 80% of people would have worn a mask if told they had to and by getting consistent messaging from officials, then all this backlash wouldn't have occurred - or it would have been extremely isolated. I've been in a couple of grocery stores in the past week since we mandated masks, and I saw no more than 3-4 people without masks in each store. Before that, it was probably 50/50 at best.

I'm pretty sure I don't agree with Mississippi governor Tate Reeves on much, but he laid out the case against herd immunity today in a series of Tweets

https://twitter.com/tatereeves/statu...83825219682304

SI

Lots of herd immunity references from my more conservative Facebook friends. I don't know if they realize the scale of what they are suggesting. It isn't just, let healthy people get sick for a few months.

Yep. Among those who appear to think the reason the CDC, WHO are for mask-wearing is because they are part of the whatever conspiracy and it has nothing to do with the virus are a couple of people I know who have been in the medical field as long as I've known them. One was I believe an EMT and is now a fitness coach, I want to say the other was/is a nurse but unsure? Anyway, point being it's infecting (pun intended) even the medical field.

Yep, that tracks with what we've heard. Would still love to see any studies on young, healthy people who are asymptomatic or don't require hospitalization, but I'm guessing no one thinks it's worth the resources at this time.

Some promising news on the race for a vaccine:

Moderna's coronavirus vaccine ready to advance to final phase of testing

Oops!

"Stitt's diagnosis is particularly notable, as he has not only pushed to aggressively reopen his state despite a surge in cases but has at times disregarded advice from medical experts. In March, he faced backlash for posting a photo of himself and his children at a crowded restaurant, which he later deleted."

He also attended Trump's recent rally in Tulsa.

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt announces he has tested positive for coronavirus

and he still is saying he thinks a mask order infringes on peoples freedoms.

The problem is he will recover, then start beating the "see it's just a flu" drum instead of spreading awareness for how easily it spreads.

We need a high profile non mask person to die before some attitudes may switch. I doubt that would even work though.

Apparently the Oxford developed Vaccine candidate has very good looking results ready to publish, being in the latest stages of review/edit for publication. Both measured Antibody response and T Cell response.
It is already in Stages 3, so further along than others as well.

Oxford vaccine: trials suggest "double protection" from coronavirus - BBC Science Focus Magazine

But even then, they'd say "oh, he had underlying conditions" as if a substantial portion of the American population doesn't.

Governor Kemp signs an executive order banning cities from requiring masks. It's like a fight to see which governor can outdumb each other to gain Trump's blessing.

I was planning on moving to Florida within the next 4-5 years. Not sure I want to do that so much anymore.

It's gonna be under water soon enough. I wouldn't go.

Local control apparently only means local control for stuff he likes. At least Nathan Deal actually believed in local control.

Fulton and Cobb counties match APS, Dekalb, etc with online start to school year.

It seems like the politically smart play would have been to not mandate masks, but to allow cities, etc. to mandate them.

He gets the "I didn't mandate masks" cred with the GOP, but masks would be mandated, lowering the spread and helping his state.

There's been a recall effort initiated against our mayor for the mask requirement here, and good 'ole Ammon Bundy, who you probably remember, shows up with his cult at various government offices around the Boise area to try to intimidate them into backing down on the requirements. The health department cancelled a meeting on mask and other safety mandates today after Bundy's gang swarmed the building and tried to break in. (I'm glad my office floor has a secured entry and lots of armed investigators around, otherwise I'm sure he'd wander by here too - if he does, I'll get a statement for the FOFC news department and post video here).

It seems like a pretty small group - when they have "protests" at the capital building it's usually about a dozen losers who who up - but they sure are noisy and persistent.

They need 25,000 signatures of registered Boise voters to get the recall on the ballot (that's a pretty huge number, it has to be 20% of all registered voters in the city - when they only got about 30k signatures on an online petition that anybody could sign as often as they wantted), and the signatures have to be obtained in person, witnessed by someone registered with the recall petition. So these people are going to be running around with their clipboards downtown, harassing people, unmasked of course. Can't wait for that.

Schools in this area are offering online or online plus 2 days a week in class. Parents have the choice.

Even Alabama has required masks. That is right, Alabama is now more "progressive" than GA.

More progressive than OH too. I know a lot of people pissed DeWine refuses to take that next step.

This is true for St. Paul public schools as well (for now at least).

SC reports 72 deaths, 30 more than any single previous day. Gotta hope that is a cumulative catch-up number or something. Yeesh.

We are going to see pretty big death numbers soon. They trail the uptick in cases by 2-3 weeks. Likely why the White House is making the move to control the numbers. They know what’s coming.

Some of this was noted in here yesterday when it began. Troubling:

I just saw on Twitter that they caved to pressure and the numbers will go back up on the CDC website.

My wife found a different teaching job. Old school was trying too hard to brand itself as a “community center.” I think her new school will be much more realistic about spread.

All of my usual FB "no mask" suspects have responded to promising news about COVID-19 vaccines by pre-registering their anti-vaxx stance.

So, it's apparently not enough to just extend a global pandemic unnecessarily, they're now doubling down on making sure it won't go the way of polio if they have any say in it.

There are a billion folks around the world who would love to have access to the American child vaccination system. Can't we trade some of our folks for some of them? Then everybody could be happy.

If Doterra releases something for covid they're gonna break the internet ordering that shit though.

I am starting to think some people are rooting for the virus.

Here's the thing with these people (if I can generalize...I'd like to see if they match with other parts of the country).

In my feed, they're the conservative, religious, second amendment, thin blue line[*], pro-military[*], rant about AOC, "you can't say he's not your president even though I said Obama wasn't my president", "I'm stocky, not fat", "here's a nice post about my wife because it's our anniversary, but mostly what you'll see is me making weeby, inappropriate comments to women friends I find more attractive", never seem to have much money but rail about how to system is rigged toward people who do, true patriots who seem to have deep and disturbing wish fulfillment fantasies about American actually collapsing so they can take their guns and be part of the special snowflake elite who rebuilds this great nation from the ground up into one where they have all the money, get to shoot all of the liberals, and all of the girls they couldn't get in high school now have to give up their pussies for protection.

Is that about right?

* By which I mean that they're super supportive of these things, but never served in either capacity.

These people are anti-vax? I mean it's anecdotal and I'm sure you are telling the truth but that is not the "typical" anti-vax profile.

As far as the no mask goes I have posted this before but it bears repeating...

I see the no mask wearing in two groups around me...
* Low education (what you would expect white redneck with dead child memorandum in their back window... likely Trump voter. My friend who is a city cop says the super low income area of North city is the worst and even was back when we were supposed to be sheltering in place... would guess they are not big Trump supporters)
* Young. Now these wear the masks for the most part to the stores but are at the bars and the ones we are reading about who are getting the virus.

However here are groups that are religiously wearing the mask around me...
* Super high income areas are basically 100%. For sure a mix in elections but probably 50/50 Trump/Clinton not 90/10 Democrat. (EDIT: Checked the 2016 election results 286K Clinton, 202K Trump) Again all wearing masks, have been basically the whole time. High education levels.
* Old people. Would also guess a lot of Trump voters.


I mean I get it the politicians are fanning the flames but I just don't agree that it is a red/blue thing. It seems to be an education thing. I won't dispute Trump pulls a lot more of the uneducated vote and has an influence on the uneducated but I really don't think 50% of the country (or even close to that) is against masks.

I just happened across this article today

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/64-d...ry?id=71779279