Public Health Expert predicts sports events won't be able to return until Fall 2021

I completely agree with this.

Furthermore, think about what happens if even a 5-on-5 basketball game — with everyone involved tested and quarantined — is deemed too risky. What do you think that signals for normal life? Most businesses aren't essential. If you can't do the basketball bubble, for example, how can you justify dine-in restaurants (even with fewer tables), since you don't know where the people visiting have been? How can you justify offices in anything but essential businesses? Think about the trickle-down effects to everyone involved in those non-essential businesses.

We don't even know that there will be a vaccine in two years. It could be longer than that. It could be never. But even if two years proves accurate — that's still a very significant chunk of each of our lives. Personally, I think it's silly to go on lockdown for at least two years, given the associated quality-of-life impacts, given what we know about the prognosis if you get it.

With that said, I'm also not saying "back to normal on May 1, damn it!" It is a big deal. Precautions need to be taken. But there's a way to do this with balance. IMO, sports with quarantine procedures are a good example (and Fauci seems to agree).

 

Yep.

The NRL in Australia has already announced they'll be resuming the competition on 28 May.

No fans, looking like they'll split the competition into conferences similar to the NBA (previously just one competition where all teams play each other and the best 8 make the 'playoffs') and have teams from each conference hunker down in an area off limits from people.

Scrambling to resume and do everything possible to make sure it happens because two of the broadcasters have refused to pay their latest cheques. They need the cash desperately.

 

1.) Yes, that's the plan, for players to be quarantined and regularly tested.

2.) Of course it's possible, you don't have to show me the studies. We just disagree on what acceptable risk is. If "lockdown until a vaccine" (which you said on the last page) is even remotely a consideration to you, we'll just have to agree to disagree.

 

The average age of an nba Coach is not 60

 

There are different kinds of tests for this virus, as there have been for others. The technology has changed considerably, even in the short time we've had to work with this virus. That will continue. Fauci made this point about HIV, that the tests improved to the point where he can test somebody and know with 100% certainty whether they're infected.

That level of certainty took many years, so it's an open question how solid a test we'll have by July or August. The league's job is to prepare the rest of a containment system that can work with a reliable test, one it arrives. Fingers crossed.

P.S. Even at 79, Fauci is way, way better at basketball than Jared Dudley is at epidemiology.

 

If that's the plan, with strict quarantine and constant PCR tests every few days, that is feasible.
Yeah lockdown for risky groups like over 60s.

Maybe some people don't understand how high is the mortality rate for people of coaches ages.
Especially since most coaches aren't in the best health condition. Many of them have heart conditions, are fat, have horrible diets, and are suffering from isonmnia and stress and are over 65,

If you ask from someone like Popovich to go coach, it is absolutely telling him to risk his life.

And I didn't even get to the genetic part. There is reason to suspect that many of the players MAY be more susceptible to a more severe form of the disease.

 

I can just see it now:

• NBA somehow has playoffs this summer
  
  
• Rockets win the title, because
  • Harden rises in the clutch like never before, but it's downplayed,
  • Because Kawhi refuses to play and put himself at risk of catching COVID-19, and
  • Lebron has a very sluggish series, and ESPN says the series is unfair; "Lebron is playing sick."

• Later, in a big scandal, NBA strips Rockets of title, because a Windhorst story comes out that Westbrook was positive, and refused to quit playing, while Tilman kept it quiet.

• As further penalty, Silver announces he's stripping the Rockets of their 2020 1st and 2nd Round picks, until someone tells him they don't have any.

 

He was likely talking about antibody tests, because that's where the most effort is being focused on improving them, not PCR that has 99% sensitivity and specificity with a combination of nasal and oral swabs.

For example the big study that the MLB will participate in, will likely be trash because the diagnostic tools used- the FDA approved antibody tests have extremely low specificity.
The idea behind them being so hastily approved without even been checked against a golden standard - was to have some first results now to be able to study the immunity rate of the population - even though it will have TONS of false positives.
But PCR tests are impossible to detect presymptomatics because the viral load is still low.

Of course I also hope they are improved as well, since presymptomatics now pose the biggest danger in spreading the virus.

 

How many nba coaches would you say are in risky groups?
The risky factors are having a >30 BMI, heart condition, older than 65, diabetes and hypertension.

 

This hinges on whether Harden is allowed to go to strip clubs before important games.

 

We can go on and on. Are we just going to move on from those in school? Are we just going to move on from traveling? Is the music industry just going to move on? Again the aspects that go hand in hand with the quality of life doesn’t stop

 

If the scientists agree with that conclusion, then put demographic stipulations in there and don't have coaches of that age. That's a lot better than shutting down the business for everyone.

(Obviously, I would prefer not to go down that road. IMO, the appropriate route is what businesses are doing now, which is buying time to get more information and to make sure health-care capacity isn't exceeded. But once you start talking "until a vaccine," which could be years — if ever — I just don't think a total business shutdown is in society's best interest.)

 

Man, I really hope that's not an insurmountable barrier. And sports is the least of it.

 

We don’t know the health details of nba coach’s but the average age isn’t 60 that’s for sure.

 

I absolutely agree and that should be done.
Not only coaches, but also the same with officials, commentators security guards.

I have no appetite to watch a game that I know can easily lead to a person ending up with pneumonia or even god forbid going to a ventilator.

I would also want to see more studies done about genetic factors before NBA games are back.
For example - KAT there is reason to suspect that if he isn't immune yet- may be in danger of getting it in a bad way.
I don't want to see a player ending up with pneumonia.

Also dont' put the if ever. There will be a vaccine for sure 100% but it will take some time.
It will take more time for us average people to have it than NBA teams that's for sure.

 

There are more pressing issues like the antibody tests which so far all are pretty much failures.
If we get surveilled and tracked like some are suggesting then presymptomatic as long as there is no mass group events, can be a risk mitigated.
Whoever got in contact with one who is later found to be positive will just be sent into quarantine and twice checked with PCR every 5 days.

 

Fair enough, my apologies for not initially understanding your position. That makes sense. I admittedly don't know enough about the medical risk factors, but I trust and hope that those are being discussed in the conversations between the leagues and health authorities.

 

If a restaurant or store has a COVID19 outbreak you can close it for awhile and then reopen it. Which is what is happening today.

It gets way harder to figure out with a sports league logistically. I guess you can have some sort of continuous season that never really ends.

Also, if someone gets badly sick from an NBA game and the league is operating against public guidance about gatherings - good luck explaining that to your insurance carrier when you get sued, especially if 3rd parties end up getting sick.

 

We're only talking about a scenario where the NBA plays after explicitly getting clearance from health authorities (note Fauci's comments today, MLB's plan which reportedly has agency approval, etc.). I don't think there's any chance they go against public guidance.

And again, your scenario about a store with a positive COVID case is what's happening today because there isn't enough testing to keep testing the other employees at said store. That's a slam dunk to basically close for two weeks. We're talking about a hypothetical where there is testing. You can also have them under surveillance and be confident they aren't going out into the broader population, which you aren't really if store employees are leaving and going wherever else.

I'm not going to pretend that I know the answer, but it's different than the scenarios we've had thus far. Is it different enough to proceed? I dunno. The people Passan has talked to seem to think it is, but we need more exploration of that angle to know, yes.

 

I was thinking more along the lines of Galaga at the arcade ....