Unpopular opinion. Just cancel all pro sports until a vaccine hits

[toldozer]

18 minutes ago, Peon Awesome said:

Thanks everyone for the positive messages. I find the divide we have in this country alarmingly disturbing. In response I have made a concerted effort to genuinely understand why people believe what they do in the hopes I can meet them there and civilly explain why my beliefs differ from theirs. Usually their beliefs start from a place of truth that is so heavily distorted to fit the narrative without any context. For instance, back when there were a similar number of deaths from COVID as a really bad flu season, people would use that to support their belief that it's no worse than the flu, ignoring the fact that cases were still rapidly rising and the whole country was shut down so we had kept the numbers unnaturally low, compared to a flu season where everything is open and no one is taking precautions. Now we have twice as many cases, with numbers only still ramping up in most places. I had another friend who quoted a statistic that said the death rate in the US was something outrageously low, like 0.002%. I then realized they had taken the total number of deaths and divided it by the entire US population rather than the number of cases (and this was like 2 months ago when only a very small percentage of people had gotten it).

Not sure if my method will get a single person to open their mind but seems worth trying a new strategy since back and forth name-calling hasn't worked. 

Total number of positive tests is around 2.4 million right?  I would guess 10x that many people have gotten the virus and not been tested for it. I really think my wife and I got it in February.  We were stuck in Charlotte Douglas for 8 hours then flew to San Antonio and did touristy things for 3 days then flew back through Atlanta. A few days later we were sick,  had a nagging cough for a month and felt pretty weak for 5 or 6 days. There won't be ever be a true death rate on it because a ton of people had/have it and dont even know and anyone tested positive and died has been added to the count even if it was only one of the reasons they died. Point being,  no it's not. 0002% but it's also not 5% or whatever the math works out to either.  My guess would be somewhere around 1%. I agree with you that there should be a plan to take precautions,  wear masks when possible and enforce it. My point will always be that should have been done from the get go instead of tanking the economy to the tune of billions and billions of dollars. 

[RASTAN66]

52 minutes ago, Wes21 said:

When I went to a golf event as a fan I was also able to socially distance myself from other fans.  I couldn't do that when I went to a basketball or football game.

The issue is how the sport reacts when a player is found to have COVID.

Golf isolated the guy, monitored others he had come close to, and moved on with a terrific event -- a logical and measured response.  What a novel idea...

FYI, no fans were at the initial event 2 weeks ago or the one that concluded yesterday. 

[4Corners]

13 hours ago, RASTAN66 said:

PGA Tour player tested positive this week and the event motored right along without a hiccup...

...in case you were wondering a Charlottean won the event — Webb Simpson clipped a $1,350,000 1st-place check for his hard work. 
 

Players gonna play...

 

#NextManUp

Hey billy T - golf isn’t an example an intelligent person would use. How many people made the cut Friday -75? If you add their caddy that’s 150 individuals split into teams of two that really don’t require any sort of specialized locker room so it’s a lot easier to keep every isolated; which is why it they were able to continue after the golfer tested positive. 
 

have you played a team sport before? I’m not talking about tee ball either 

[LinvilleGorge]

3 minutes ago, RASTAN66 said:

The issue is how the sport reacts when a player is found to have COVID.

Golf isolated the guy, monitored others he had come close to, and moved on with a terrific event -- a logical and measured response.  What a novel idea...

FYI, no fans were at the initial event 2 weeks ago or the one that concluded yesterday. 

Golf is just an awful example to use for team sports. We're talking about an individual outdoor sport played on 100+ acres vs. high contact team sports. There's no reason why golf can't continue with appropriate precautions. We can try team sports, but the likelihood of an outbreak on a team is high. What do you do then? Have that team forfeit their games because a third of them have COVID? 

[RASTAN66]

23 hours ago, Peon Awesome said:

A lot of the COVID patients in the ICU have very few if any medical problems. I can't give specifics or risk a firing due to HIPAA violations but trust me that not every person in the ICU is 80 years old.

 

[LinvilleGorge]

It's interesting how some people will eagerly trust information that they want to believe or that is out forth by people with similar political leanings, but not trust information from an actual doctor sharing very non-alarmist first hand information. Confirmation bias is real as fug and it can be crippling.

[Peon Awesome]

16 minutes ago, toldozer said:

Total number of positive tests is around 2.4 million right?  I would guess 10x that many people have gotten the virus and not been tested for it. I really think my wife and I got it in February.  We were stuck in Charlotte Douglas for 8 hours then flew to San Antonio and did touristy things for 3 days then flew back through Atlanta. A few days later we were sick,  had a nagging cough for a month and felt pretty weak for 5 or 6 days. There won't be ever be a true death rate on it because a ton of people had/have it and dont even know and anyone tested positive and died has been added to the count even if it was only one of the reasons they died. Point being,  no it's not. 0002% but it's also not 5% or whatever the math works out to either.  My guess would be somewhere around 1%. I agree with you that there should be a plan to take precautions,  wear masks when possible and enforce it. My point will always be that should have been done from the get go instead of tanking the economy to the tune of billions and billions of dollars. 

Agreed with your mortality assessment. But like I specified in my post, this person was quoting the statistic sometime in April when there wasn't anywhere close to that many cases, making it an absurd miscalculation. I don't think anyone short of the misinformed are quoting a mortality rate of 5% at this point. People forget that this was a novel virus. We didn't know much of anything at first. As we learn more, the information has been updated. I think it's probably around 0.5 to 1% at most, which is certainly not as scary but still much worse than the flu. 

As far as opening the country from the start, I disagree to an extent. I think we could have done it a bit sooner but we needed extreme measures initially so that our hospital systems could gather personal protective equipment and build the infrastructure to handle the cases. Maybe we could have avoided it if the country, starting with our leadership, took it seriously from the very beginning rather than act like we had it under such great control and wouldn't be a problem. Then as cases started ramping up, we had to play major catch up. So in a sense, maybe we could have left the economy open with some restrictions on day 1, but that would have required our leaders to say "The coronavirus is coming and we need to be ready. Start ramping up PPE production and hospitals start preparing. Here's some government funding to help get you there." CDC and WHO also made a big mistake saying people shouldn't wear masks earlier on. I understand the thought process; they didn't want everyone buying out masks like they did hand sanitizer and toilet paper when hospitals were having major shortages, especially since masks are more effective in slowing the spread once cases start rising than before they do. But they should have just said up front "Please do not buy a bunch of masks as we don't have enough for hospital workers as is. Instead wear a face covering like a bandana, which will still help keep cases from spreading." So we missed opportunities that's for sure.

[RASTAN66]

2 hours ago, LinvilleGorge said:

There's no reason why golf can't continue with appropriate precautions.

We can try team sports, but the likelihood of an outbreak on a team is high.

What do you do then? Have that team forfeit their games because a third of them have COVID? 

Agreed....but the entire premise of the thread is an across the board cancellation of "all pro sports" and it sure seems like most people think that's a grand idea.

I don't believe the likelihood of an "outbreak" on a team is high.

Given the way they are going stage the team sports (isolation, bubble, etc) I'd say the odds are actually quite low. 

Golf is the opposite, PGA Tour players are coming from all over the country every week, leave the site for the night daily, etc....that's where the risk is.

The wallowers are probably screaming that the PGA Tour should cancel everything until next summer, but they didn't. 

 

 

[blackcat]

I just had a customer who was pissed he couldn't enter my building tell me that Covid was 'made up'......SMH.

Face it, we're stuck with this disease for the long haul because folks are ignorant and won't do what's necessary to fight the spread.  

[Peon Awesome]

12 minutes ago, RASTAN66 said:

 

Thank you. I stand corrected. I was using it in that context as a figure of speech, like "you'll have to take my word on it", so you may understand my confusion. I mistakenly assumed you were implying that I was dictating people need to trust me which is not within my character. I assume you were more trying to be clever in your response which I have to say, not bad. I find when people say "trust me" genuinely, it comes off more as manipulative than engendering trust which is why I felt important to clarify. But thanks for letting me know what you were referring to. 

As an aside, I opened our hospital's COVID tracker on my desktop instead of my phone and did find you could switch the numbers to the individual hospitals. I doubt it changes your opinion but since you're curious, I undershot it quite a bit. The main hospital has nearly 170 ventilators (apologies I am not giving the exact numbers as I am trying to maintain some anonymity rather than have everyone figure out where I work). Total ICU beds is almost the same, closer to 160. Granted this is actually 2 hospitals (they include the 2 biggest branches when referring to the main hospital), with the actual single main hospital where I work probably accounting for 80% of those. Again I only quoted medical ICU beds in my original post because I mistook the purpose of your post to asking how close we were to overwhelming our capacity of caring for COVID patients who are treated in the medical ICU and not the surgical, cardiac, neuro, burn, etc ICUs.

Anyhow hope that helps you in some way and if not, sorry I wasted both your and my time.

[RASTAN66]

35 minutes ago, 4Corners said:

If you add their caddy that’s 150 individuals split into teams of two that really don’t require any sort of specialized locker room so it’s a lot easier to keep every isolated; which is why it they were able to continue after the golfer tested positive.

It's actually the exact opposite....there's no isolation of PGA Tour players whatsoever.

PS....the thread says "pro sports", golf is a pro sport.  The threadline does not say "team sports".

[RASTAN66]

1 minute ago, Peon Awesome said:

Thank you. I stand corrected. I was using it in that context as a figure of speech, like "you'll have to take my word on it", so you may understand my confusion. I mistakenly assumed you were implying that I was dictating people need to trust me which is not within my character. I assume you were more trying to be clever in your response which I have to say, not bad. I find when people say "trust me" genuinely, it comes off more as manipulative than engendering trust which is why I felt important to clarify. But thanks for letting me know what you were referring to. 

As an aside, I opened our hospital's COVID tracker on my desktop instead of my phone and did find you could switch the numbers to the individual hospitals. I doubt it changes your opinion but since you're curious, I undershot it quite a bit. The main hospital has nearly 170 ventilators (apologies I am not giving the exact numbers as I am trying to maintain some anonymity rather than have everyone figure out where I work). Total ICU beds is almost the same, closer to 160. Granted this is actually 2 hospitals (they include the 2 biggest branches when referring to the main hospital), with the actual single main hospital where I work probably accounting for 80% of those. Again I only quoted medical ICU beds in my original post because I mistook the purpose of your post to asking how close we were to overwhelming our capacity of caring for COVID patients who are treated in the medical ICU and not the surgical, cardiac, neuro, burn, etc ICUs.

Anyhow hope that helps you in some way and if not, sorry I wasted both your and my time.

I'm starting to trust you a little bit...

[4Corners]

4 minutes ago, RASTAN66 said:

It's actually the exact opposite....there's no isolation of PGA Tour players whatsoever.

Link? 

[RASTAN66]

1 minute ago, 4Corners said:

Link? 

For what?