Moving toward Football in the Fall

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Chattanooga Jacket said:
What I fear might happen (and I hope it doesn’t) is that one coach or player (especially a high profile person) from any of the big sports (pro or college) gets COVID from sports related activities and then dies from it. That would likely throw everything into doubt.
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Every year there are spinal cord and serious head injuries among football players. Those can be just as tragic, but the sport continues on schedule. The COVID-19 risk of death to college-age athletes is probably much less than some other threats related to football activities, especially when you factor in the regular testing that is going to be done. A coach that is over 65 or has serious chronic underlying medical concerns should probably not be participating in group activities.
 
I see a lot of speculation on here without a lot of data to back it up, so I wanted to provide some data from Arizona.

This is a 7 day rolling average of the number of new cases per day in AZ. You can see a sharp uptick starting around May 28. We "gradually" opened back up for business between May 11 and May 15.

upload_2020-6-24_11-27-26.png


I have a similar graph with the 7 day rolling average of deaths, that looks to be following a similar pattern, just lagging by a couple of weeks, but it won't let me upload two images to a single post. The 7-day rolling average has been creeping up from about 12 per day in late May to about 20 per day last week, with a spike up to 32 today, due to 79 deaths identified yesterday.

The protests have probably started showing up as a factor, but not until the past few days. The dramatic increase that you're seeing in the graph above starts long before they would have had an impact, or even before they started.

The lone caveat is that the daily data is taken from the Arizona Department of Health, and just because a death is identified on a particular day doesn't mean that the death occurred on the day. This can also be said about positive tests. There's likely a 2 or 3 day lag for both. However, it's still definitely useful to use to identify trends.
 
LaFlavor said:
I see a lot of speculation on here without a lot of data to back it up, so I wanted to provide some data from Arizona.

This is a 7 day rolling average of the number of new cases per day in AZ. You can see a sharp uptick starting around May 28. We "gradually" opened back up for business between May 11 and May 15.

upload_2020-6-24_11-27-26.png


I have a similar graph with the 7 day rolling average of deaths, that looks to be following a similar pattern, just lagging by a couple of weeks, but it won't let me upload two images to a single post. The 7-day rolling average has been creeping up from about 12 per day in late May to about 20 per day last week, with a spike up to 32 today, due to 79 deaths identified yesterday.

The protests have probably started showing up as a factor, but not until the past few days. The dramatic increase that you're seeing in the graph above starts long before they would have had an impact, or even before they started.

The lone caveat is that the daily data is taken from the Arizona Department of Health, and just because a death is identified on a particular day doesn't mean that the death occurred on the day. This can also be said about positive tests. There's likely a 2 or 3 day lag for both. However, it's still definitely useful to use to identify trends.
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Here's a critical bit of data to consider regarding school sports: 2.4 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the US, and yet I can't find a single case of a college athlete dying or even being hospitalized for it. Not saying it can't happen, but there is no valid argument for canceling the football season for a respiratory virus when there are so many other greater health risks that college athletes face every year.
 
jacket67 said:
Here's a critical bit of data to consider regarding school sports: 2.4 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the US, and yet I can't find a single case of a college athlete dying or even being hospitalized for it. Not saying it can't happen, but there is no valid argument for canceling the football season for a respiratory virus when there are so many other greater health risks that college athletes face every year.
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How many football games, baseball games, and basketball games have been played since Feb 2020 (or even organized practices). My guess is zero to very few.
 
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jacket67 said:
Here's a critical bit of data to consider regarding school sports: 2.4 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the US, and yet I can't find a single case of a college athlete dying or even being hospitalized for it. Not saying it can't happen, but there is no valid argument for canceling the football season for a respiratory virus when there are so many other greater health risks that college athletes face every year.
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It’s not just the athlete though. That athlete has parents, grandparents, teachers, other students, etc that they interact with. All of whom also interact with more people.

So it’s not just trying to not have any athletes die. It’s trying to control the spread of the disease through everyone they come in contact with.
 
Chattanooga Jacket said:
How many football games, baseball games, and basketball games have been played since Feb 2020 (or even organized practices). My guess is not many to zero.
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There have already been a couple thousand COVID-19 cases in college athletes, regardless of how they were exposed. The mechanism of spread should not have a significant effect on the lethality of the infection.
 
Diseqc said:
It’s not just the athlete though. That athlete has parents, grandparents, teachers, other students, etc that they interact with. All of whom also interact with more people.

So it’s not just trying to not have any athletes die. It’s trying to control the spread of the disease through everyone they come in contact with.
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So, kind of like flu every year. Slowing the spread was for one reason, and one reason only: avoiding a situation where hospitals were overwhelmed and ICU beds were in short supply due to a unmanageable number of cases. There are ways to have targeted mitigation for high-risk individuals, like grandparents and chronically ill people, without shutting our society down, upending our economy, and depriving college athletes of their activities.
 
Diseqc said:
It’s not just the athlete though. That athlete has parents, grandparents, teachers, other students, etc that they interact with. All of whom also interact with more people.

So it’s not just trying to not have any athletes die. It’s trying to control the spread of the disease through everyone they come in contact with.
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So instead of having athletes (and other students) on campus where they are not exposing older relatives to a virus particularly virulent in the elderly population we should send them home to live with those same vulnerable people?
 
jacket67 said:
Here's a critical bit of data to consider regarding school sports: 2.4 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the US, and yet I can't find a single case of a college athlete dying or even being hospitalized for it. Not saying it can't happen, but there is no valid argument for canceling the football season for a respiratory virus when there are so many other greater health risks that college athletes face every year.
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Are there only college age kids at college football games? I think most coaches and fans are in a slightly older demographic. Are you thinking we completely quarantine each team and hold the games without a crowd?

Also, I know there have been a significant number of deaths in the 0-24 age range, which is the closest range I can find broken out by age.

JoeCakeEater said:
Do we play at Arizona or Arizona State this season?
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The point of my data is to show what happens when you open up too early. Unless you think the virus behaves differently on the east coast then it does in AZ?
 
LaFlavor said:
Are there only college age kids at college football games? I think most coaches and fans are in a slightly older demographic. Are you thinking we completely quarantine each team and hold the games without a crowd?

Also, I know there have been a significant number of deaths in the 0-24 age range, which is the closest range I can find broken out by age.



The point of my data is to show what happens when you open up too early. Unless you think the virus behaves differently on the east coast then it does in AZ?
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There have not been a significant number of deaths in the 0-24 age range. 151 deaths as of 6/17/2020 per CDC data.

Georgia started opening up earlier than any other state and has not seen a spike in cases until the past week or so. Although we opened a while back it has been a slow easing of restrictions and people becoming more and more lax in the behavior.
 
I keep hearing about "coming into contact with older relatives" and things like this. The 20% multi-generational homes in the country should not be the primary consideration when putting together safety policies. If you live in an extended family or are at risk yourself then by all means follow whatever degree of quarantine you feel is necessary for your family, but additional shutdown antics will further put the majority's families at risk when the unemployment rate rises and people get let go or furloughed. As far as attending games, those at risk or in extended families should not attend if they are not comfortable with the possibility of transmission. Don't ruin it for the rest of us
 
gtg970g said:
There have not been a significant number of deaths in the 0-24 age range. 151 deaths as of 6/17/2020 per CDC data.

Georgia started opening up earlier than any other state and has not seen a spike in cases until the past week or so. Although we opened a while back it has been a slow easing of restrictions and people becoming more and more lax in the behavior.
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What would be a significant number to you? Honest question.

Georgia was pretty lucky. I hope what's been happening here doesn't repeat there. The trend doesn't look great right now.
 
LaFlavor said:
What would be a significant number to you? Honest question.

Georgia was pretty lucky. I hope what's been happening here doesn't repeat there. The trend doesn't look great right now.
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For this age range the flu is literally more fatal. I would consider COVID a significant risk if it was maybe 50% more deadly than the flu. That's just a spitball answer but the levels of people from age 0-24 dying is not significant IMO. And I'm not one of those people who thinks this disease is "just like the flu" or "no more dangerous than the flu" but for this age range it is literally less deadly than the flu so I think the comparison is valid.
 
jacket67 said:
Every year there are spinal cord and serious head injuries among football players. Those can be just as tragic, but the sport continues on schedule. The COVID-19 risk of death to college-age athletes is probably much less than some other threats related to football activities, especially when you factor in the regular testing that is going to be done. A coach that is over 65 or has serious chronic underlying medical concerns should probably not be participating in group activities.
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Any coach in a high risk group should coach from the box upstairs. As long as they wear a mask and use hand sanitizer, the risk is no greater than going to a grocery store.
 
The GTAA is asking us what we're going to do in the fall...
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jacket67 said:
There have already been a couple thousand COVID-19 cases in college athletes, regardless of how they were exposed. The mechanism of spread should not have a significant effect on the lethality of the infection.
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I think, and I am open to correction, that the athletes are worried not about death or hospitalization, but by damage to the lungs, which of course affects their top performance and stamina and ability to compete, both long and short term.

Not saying whether or not that fear is well-founded. Saying it is a fear.
 
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