What league is the one that is thinking of allowing positive asymptomatic players play in games? Pretty sure it's the NBA. It would be similar to something like strep where you could go to work 24 hours after the last fever. You would still technically be positive for strep, but not necessarily contagious. At this point, they're making it up as they go along with an eye on protecting profits. Watch and see everyone be available for the Christmas games.
It's a shame so many are entering protocols, if only they got vaccinated all this could have be... Wait.
No clue exactly what works for people but having a league that is practically fully vaccinated and some boostered and still having to postpone games is nuts. Plus they have one of their top players not playing due to vaccine issues while everyone is still getting covid. Yes I know it's a restriction from a local government, but it's silly to me. The league did nothing to stand up for Kyrie either. Kyrie also never does himself any favors either, but that's another issue. What exactly are they trying to accomplish at this point?
I imagine the goal is to keep Covid-infected players from playing basketball against other non-infected players so they don't end up infecting everyone. I'm not sure what people expect the NBA to do. Your options are loosen the protocols meaning you're knowingly putting players at risk, or tighten restrictions further, meaning locking players down or postponing more games and such. All the protocols are an agreement between the NBA and NBAPA. They are trying to simultaneously run their season so they can all make money while protecting the health of their players.
If they don't feel that sick then just play. Treat it like the cold or flu. Covid for young athletes with antibodies is a minor illness at worst. If they haven't been vaccinated or have low antibody levels then just give them monoclonals or paxlovid and move on.
pretty sure the league is letting khyrni erwing rest as much as possible so he'd be healthy for the playoffs. everyone knows durant will carry the nets to the #1 seed and having flat earth avoid injury and play in the playoffs gives the nets a higher chance at the ring. silver is happy
https://theathletic.com/3025806/202...-in-sight-are-they-going-to-cancel-christmas/ Let’s say a team in, say, a major metropolitan area is scheduled to play one of ABC’s/ESPN’s Christmas Day/Night games on Saturday, as part of the four-letter network’s marquee NBA programming. But, let’s also say that team currently has almost all of its top-15 players out because they’re in the league’s COVID-19 protocols. Does one of the league’s primary broadcast partners even want to air a game full of Long Island G League call-ups (not that there’s anything wrong with Long Island G League call-ups)? It’s a puzzlement, as the King of Siam used to say. “I’ve been getting calls from our players all day — ‘Michele, are they going to cancel Christmas (games)?,'” National Basketball Players Association Executive Director Michele Roberts said Sunday. “People are concerned about who would ultimately be available to play. And the answer is, I don’t know … it is, obviously, concerning. There are some questions right now about some of our so-called marquee players’ availability to be able to play on Christmas. That’s our day, and we’d hate to not be able to continue to own that day, But one might ask the question — if your marquee guys are all in quarantine, is it worth playing those games, or should those games be, if they can be, postponed? No one’s asked me. But at this point, I think it’s still coming down to prayer.” Kevin Durant, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Trae Young, James Harden, Zach LaVine, Evan Mobley, Jarrett Allen, De’Aaron Fox, R.J. Barrett and Pascal Siakam are among the many stars currently in their teams’ protocols. Lakers coach Frank Vogel, Pacers coach Rick Carlisle and Kings coach Alvin Gentry have each tested positive in the last week; Raptors president Masai Ujiri did earlier in the month. Like much of the rest of Earth, the NBA has been hit hard in the last two weeks by the Omicron variant of COVID-19, dealing with a league-wide outbreak among players, coaches and team personnel in the last 10 days. More than 15 percent of the league’s 450 players were in the NBA’s Health and Safety protocols as of Sunday evening, whether because they’d tested positive for COVID or were close contacts to others who had. Seven games have been canceled, including five that had been scheduled to be played between Sunday and Tuesday, involving three teams hit especially hard by outbreaks: Brooklyn, Chicago and Cleveland. More are likely in the coming days. Brooklyn had 10 players in its protocols Sunday; the Cavaliers, seven. The hope among some NBA teams on Sunday was that this latest outbreak of the latest variant would not pack the punch to the league that last year’s Delta variant surge provided. It could be a misguided hope. The NHL has been staggered; the league has shut down five of its teams — Boston, Nashville, Calgary, Colorado and Florida — at least through Christmas, with multiple games this past weekend postponed. The NFL had to push three of its scheduled games this weekend to Monday and Tuesday. English Premier League clubs are set to discuss postponing of the entire round of year-end holiday fixtures, as reported on Sunday by The Athletic. Multiple college basketball games were postponed this weekend. “It’s not a pandemic; it’s endemic,” one team executive said. That doesn’t mean there isn’t some grumbling among teams about the difference in testing protocols among teams, depending on how deep a team is into a surge. Teams with a player who’s tested positive are in enhanced testing, while others with no cases have the same testing cadences as before. And those teams that now have to test a lot don’t see the fairness of having to play against teams that don’t have to test any more than normal. The lineups over the weekend for some teams weren’t recognizable for all but their most ardent fans. And the games count. But an equally big issue in this league, now, is not the swath of the virus’ next cut through the league, which everyone involved expects to worsen into January. It’s not even the mandated, enhanced testing that will begin, uh, the day after ESPN’s Christmas extravaganza (insert your conspiracy theories here) and run through Jan. 6. It’s the renewed anxiety about having to go through this again, just as crowds had returned to the league after a year-plus of playing in empty buildings. “We thought we’d gone through the worst, and the notion it might not be the worst is pretty spooky,” Roberts said. “We had, what, 97, 98 percent vax rate. … We thought we’ve done all that’s humanly possible, and we’ll be able to plow through the season. And all of a sudden, it’s worse than it was before. There’s a certain amount of, I guess, depression — now, what else?” There is skepticism among some players, even with boosters, that the league will be able to complete the season, although the league muscled through last season, even as teams like Washington were out for almost two weeks during the regular season after COVID swept through the Wizards’ roster. There is great concern about the higher transmission rate of Omicron than Delta, even though preliminary trials seem to indicate Omicron is less lethal than Delta was. And, going into Christmas Week, players obviously want to know how infectious they are if they come in close contact with loved ones. With somewhere between 60-65 percent of NBA players who’ve been fully vaccinated also having received their boosters, shots in arms aren’t the issue anymore. Kyrie Irving’s return to play for Brooklyn, whenever that occurs, is an interesting outlier, but it’s not central to the question of vaxxed versus non-vaxxed. The overwhelming majority of NBA players have gotten the shot. But if players who’ve done everything they’ve been asked to do, and yet still get the virus, and display asymptomatic, but are still held out of play … it’s not a recipe for good feelings. Players wonder, if they feel reasonably good after contracting Omicron, and are not debilitated, why they still have to sit out seven days. For now, the NBA and the union have not agreed to modified testing procedures and rules for vaccinated players, as the NFL and its union did late last week. Previously, NFL players and team personnel who’d been vaccinated were still required to test every week. And if they tested positive during the season, they needed to produce two negative tests, separated by 24 hours, and be asymptomatic. Otherwise, they’d have to be quarantined for 10 days. The new protocols allow players who initially tested positive, but who have been asymptomatic in the interim, to clear their team’s COVID list with two negative tests at any time, with no 24-hour interval period required, or at least one negative test and one with Cycle Threshold values of 35 or greater. For now, the NBA and the union are maintaining their current testing protocols, which require players who test positive, regardless of their vaccination status, to sit out at least a week. Between Dec. 26 and Jan. 6, all players will be tested on game days, except those who’ve received their booster shots 14 days or longer before then, or who have recently recovered from COVID. Late Sunday, the NBA and union agreed to modify some of the current rules regarding teams’ abilities to replace players who are out both because of COVID and because of non-COVID injury or illness. Through Jan. 19, teams will be allowed replace players who are confirmed positive COVID on their rosters without regard to roster size limits. Teams will be required to sign replacement players to replace those out with COVID, depending on the number of COVID players on their roster, on a sliding scale. If a team has two players out with COVID, it will have to sign at least one replacement player; if it has three players out, it will have to sign two replacement players; if it has four or more players out, it will have to sign three replacements. The salaries of the hardship replacement players will not count against a team’s salary cap. But it’s not “Happy” or “Merry” this week in the Association. “The one thing about NBA players is, they’re no different from the rest of us,” Roberts said. “They’re like, what the hell?”
paxlovid is not yet approved in the US so it's not available current available monocolonals are probably useless against Omicron At some point, this is what we should do. We aren't there yet with treatments nor with vaccination rate. If the NBA and the Player association wants this, they will need all their fan to sign a serious waiver which likely just meant no fan at games again.
