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I really hope it works out, but I'm not holding my breath. You can keep athletes pretty safe, but can you keep them away from off campus house parties, girls, etc? Even if a school went 100% virtual, upperclassmen are still going to be living off campus, hanging out, etc. School can't control what goes on a mile off campus. 

Whether it is justified or not, I'm fully expecting all college students to be home by mid October. "University of ________ student dies from Covid complications" is not a good headline for anybody, even if the school were 100% virtual it doesn't stop the mob from creating bad press. 

Hoping for the best, expecting the very little. 

Last week my niece was informed her Pac-12 softball (and all undergrads) will now be stay at home and online classes.  Prior to that everything was set to be on campus learning and athletics as usual.  As it gets closer to January a decision will be made on classes and athletics.  I feel sorry for all college students since an important part of college life has now been put on hold indefinately.  Stay safe

Our local college was literally in the process of moving football players in when the conference decided to cancel the season. Son said right now they are planning things to be as usual, although I think he will be tested once a week. Very few students at his school live in dorms other than freshmen, so maybe that will help?? Or maybe not.

I'd argue that any "plan" that doesn't account for behaviors inherent to the college age group, is not a plan.  Hope is not a strategy.  I'd say the same thing for any national plan.  If your plan requires 90-95-100% adherence of 328 million people, you need to head back to the drawing board.  Same thing for adherence of 20,000 college students.  It's either that or adjust your desired outcome.  I think we should spend more time talking about what CAN be accomplished versus what we WISH could be accomplished.  

@DanJ posted:

I'd argue that any "plan" that doesn't account for behaviors inherent to the college age group, is not a plan.  Hope is not a strategy.  I'd say the same thing for any national plan.  If your plan requires 90-95-100% adherence of 328 million people, you need to head back to the drawing board.  Same thing for adherence of 20,000 college students.  It's either that or adjust your desired outcome.  I think we should spend more time talking about what CAN be accomplished versus what we WISH could be accomplished.  

100% agree with this post.   Now I am hoping that Notre Dame sticks with their two week online only plan just announced - I do assume this was part of their plan if there was more than expected noncompliance.   If they end up sending kids home I am afraid that spring will be canceled too.   The only thing that could save spring if colleges bail on fall now would be a vaccine that could occur in a few months but then needs mass production.   The Notre Dame issue (as Ripken Fan points out) seems to be linked to an off campus party.  I think the kids who threw it and those that went should be restricted from campus and be online for the balance of the year (or semester).   

Bringing them to campus, then sending them home (as UNC did) seems like the worst possible option.  Students will take the virus back to their families and home communities.  UNC apparently had only 75 rooms for quarantine and 75 for isolation, and they filled up their quarantine rooms the first week.  What on earth did they expect, with 30,000 students?  I think what Notre Dame is doing is better, and I hope they keep the students on-campus, with classes online, even if cases go up.  That's the only way to get through this.  In 1918 they set up large wards in gyms, for those infected with influenza, that's what is needed now. 

Mind you, the off-campus students are complete idiots.  But they probably will stay in their apartments regardless, and maybe they don't care that their classes are now online.  So the ones who are hurt are the ones who have to leave dorms, and maybe that includes athletes, and the ones whose classes (like labs) don't work online.

From a public health standpoint, spring may be in jeopardy.  From a financial standpoint, the colleges who have to refund room and board now have an even bigger incentive to make spring work.  I sure hope so. 

Just as a note, in May, Will Emmert of the NCAA and the head of the ACC said that there would be no sports if students weren't on campus.  Apparently that is walked back (no surprise):

https://www.newsobserver.com/s...rticle245041645.html

@PTWood posted:

@RIPKENFAN Cases Already jumped to 150+ and they just announced remote classes for two weeks. Over 50 cases traced to the one off campus party. Ugh.

I'm sorry to see this. I saw the headlines in the news but reading it from people who are close to it really does bring it home. Hopefully this 2-week thing helps curb a few parties and the students unite to figure out a way to stay on campus. It's not fair to those who really want to be there, study/learn, and do the right things to enable that.  

I might be wrong but I think that most of this is a result of off campus parties and hanging out.  One in Tuscaloosa at a bar and the mayor of the town is really upset.  There was a video of an off campus pool party  at FAU.  The kids were doing back flips off the roof of the home into the pool.  With that I don't think that Corona scares them at all.   Starkville having a huge outdoor yearly event, the town said please dont, and the promoters said they will be wearing masks. Sure, ok. 

Some schools started with online classes to switch in September. That was smart.  

Big 10 players and parents not happy with them canceling football. People headed to the conferences main offices.

 

 

I know it's not a popular opinion but why not just stop testing asymptomatic 20 years olds, cull, quarantine and treat anyone with symptoms and let this crap run it's course?  Offer an online alternative for vulnerable demographics to stay home.  There is absolutely zero chance that a population in this age group is going to isolate this virus through voluntary social distancing action. It's out there, and its going to spread until it runs out of suitable host, either via herd immunity or mass vaccinations.  

Doing the hokey pokey, stop and start, is not a reasonable strategy.  

Last edited by 22and25
@22and25 posted:

I know it's not a popular opinion but why not just stop testing asymptomatic 20 years olds, cull, quarantine and treat anyone with symptoms and let this crap run it's course?  Offer an online alternative for vulnerable demographics to stay home.  There is absolutely zero chance that a population in this age group is going to isolate this virus through voluntary social distancing action. It's out there, and its going to spread until it runs out of suitable host, either via herd immunity or mass vaccinations.  

Doing the hokey pokey, stop and start, is not a reasonable strategy.  

I think it depends what plans were submitted to the state for a COVID plan.

@22and25 posted:

I know it's not a popular opinion but why not just stop testing asymptomatic 20 years olds, cull, quarantine and treat anyone with symptoms and let this crap run it's course?  Offer an online alternative for vulnerable demographics to stay home.  There is absolutely zero chance that a population in this age group is going to isolate this virus through voluntary social distancing action. It's out there, and its going to spread until it runs out of suitable host, either via herd immunity or mass vaccinations.  

Doing the hokey pokey, stop and start, is not a reasonable strategy.  

I agree 100%. Why even try something if you aren’t expecting the inevitable that there will be outbreaks. If you are testing everybody you are bound to get positive tests. Heck, even the false positive rate is practically enough to shut some plans down. 

Baseball, folks...  What is happening with the UNC baseball team, does anyone know?  Do they get to stay on campus as athletes?  Or do they have to go home?  So can they practice at all?  For that matter, can Big Ten baseball teams have any fall team activities?

Sports were not closed down at UNC. I think it is only a few weeks for online classes, and students were not sent home. I did hear that Ohio State was not shutting down sports.

@22and25 posted:

My point was directed at whomever is making policy, the university or the state or the NCAA or .......

 

The school makes the guidelines  based on CDC and state guidelines and then approved by state. That's how it is in FL, can't  speak for another state. 

NCAA for sports only and a plan is given and approved based on guidelines.

Like so many others, I wish the insanity would stop.   Understand everything that I'm about to point out I consider a horrible tragedy, and many speculated about "unknowns",  but let us focus on some of our knowns.

Per the CDC's current data, over the last 6 months in the U.S. (2/1 thru 8/8), 16 infants have died of Covid, and 9,149 infants have died of other causes in that time.  Covid accounts for 0.17% of infant deaths in the last 6 months.  For children age 1-4 there have been 10 deaths and 1,741 from other causes, meaning Covid represents 0.57% of deaths in this age group over the last 6 months.  For children between ages 5 and 14, there have been 23 recorded Covid deaths and 2,691 from other causes.  This corresponds to 0.84% of deaths in this age group.  For all the above mentioned age groups Pneumonia (without the presence of Covid) has accounted for 5 times as many deaths as Covid in the past 6 months.  For young people age 15-24 (includes most all HS and College athletes) there have been 242 deaths from Covid in the past 6 months and 16,837 from other causes.  This represents 1.4% of the deaths in this age group. 

Effectively, 100% of these tragic Covid deaths had pre-existing conditions.  Aggregately, people under the age of 25 are 105x more likely to die from something that is not Covid-19 than Covid-19.

It is time to get back to the classroom, and if you want these young people to have fear of something that might hurt them,  Covid should be way down on the list.  For no age group under 85 years, does the number of deaths from Covid over the past 6 months exceed 9% of the total causes of deaths.

If anyone feels that students shouldn't be in the classroom, on the field, the court, or in the weight room based on these numbers, please explain this to me with some evidence to support that conclusion.  Please be rational, and logical because that is what we need right now, a lot more than crazy inflammatory language we heard on the news.

 

Last edited by Pedaldad

I have absolutely no problem with people in low-risk groups being exposed to coronavirus.  It would be great if we could put them all in camps (i.e. colleges), and let them take care of each other until they had all had caught it and recovered.  And then give them all high-quality healthcare to treat any lingering problems.  The problem is that in real life those low-risk people come into contact with high-risk people.  What do you do about their families?  Teachers, and their families?  Food service workers?  Bus drivers?  Coaches?  All of the people they come into contact with?  If you put kids in schools and colleges, then the virus will spread - look how fast it is spreading in colleges - and will spread outside of the school population. 

Having said that, I do think that once colleges bring students back, they have an obligation to keep them at the college; sending them home to spread the germs further does not make sense at all.

TCM, Iowa Mom, PT Wood, NYC DAD:

Our country is in a crisis.

The Colleges are seeking National leadership.

You may recall after 9/11 the City of NY established a special task force of former FBI, CIA professionals and when a " shooting" occur in the World they sent in a team to investigate and learn.

Our American teams were in Australia and China and I observed the details of this "task" force. When Sars virus occurred in China my Task force contact  said "do not travel".

We need a National task force of Generals, Educators, Medical professionals to provide "honest" and consistent information to the States, Schools, parents. The game of baseball is a minor factor in our current "crisis".

Bob

 

 

 

@nycdad posted:

Not sure why people treat contracting Covid as a binary operation. There are many outcomes outside of...die and be fine. A lot of them suck, with many unknowns.

"There are 10 types of people. Those who understand binary, and those who don't".

Not sure why people treat managing Covid as a binary operation. The majority of people have little risk of dieing or having any adverse outcomes and will be fine.  It sucks but life should go on.

"There are 10 types of people. Those who understand binary, and those who don't".

@Pedaldad if you insist on dealing with PERCENTAGES, you must understand that about half of the population is not going to listen to you. That MIGHT change after the election. If you want the other half of the population to listen to you, you’ll have to speak in NUMBERS.  Sadly, one can easily tell a lot about a person based on which of those two designations they use. The narrative goes something like this... use percentages and you don’t care about about the death of Mrs. Sally Jensen from Woodford, IA. Use numbers and you don’t care about forcing roughly 328 million people to give up the things that make their lives worth living. Of course, both are asinine.  

The solution lies in the middle. A mix of safety protocols and accepting that Covid, like so much else, is going to take large numbers of lives. The US lost approx 60,000 lives last year to influenza. 60,000 wonderful lives that no one said jack stuff about.  We didn’t wear masks to save their precious lives nor did we social distance or even wash our hands more often for them. Why? Because we have a vaccine that is semi-effective? No. The fact is, we’ve made peace with our balance of influenza safety protocols and the massive number of deaths that it causes each and every year. Just like we do with every other thing that plagues us. Balance. The roadmap is there and we absolutely will end up there. But it’s an election year and we’ve convinced ourselves that this is the most important election in the history of the country, so the inevitable has to wait until after it to even be discussed. Spoiler Alert!  We all know how this story ends because we’ve seen it a hundred times already. 

@nycdad posted:

Not sure why people treat contracting Covid as a binary operation. There are many outcomes outside of...die and be fine. A lot of them suck, with many unknowns.

"There are 10 types of people. Those who understand binary, and those who don't"

I get the joke, but can you provide some hard evidence for the "outcomes outside of die that suck." with the rate of occurrence. I am not being sardonic.  I look very hard for this information and if you have a legitimate source with data, I'd like to look at it for myself.  If you don't, then I worry this is repeated conjecture that causes people to be paralyzed by irrational fear, like when they rely on media.

It makes me think of one of my partner's Amish patients.  My partner asked this Amish patient how their community was doing in the wake of this pandemic.  His reply was,  " We are doing fine.  We don't watch the news."

@DanJ posted:

@Pedaldad if you insist on dealing with PERCENTAGES, you must understand that about half of the population is not going to listen to you. That MIGHT change after the election. If you want the other half of the population to listen to you, you’ll have to speak in NUMBERS.  Sadly, one can easily tell a lot about a person based on which of those two designations they use. The narrative goes something like this... use percentages and you don’t care about about the death of Mrs. Sally Jensen from Woodford, IA. Use numbers and you don’t care about forcing roughly 328 million people to give up the things that make their lives worth living. Of course, both are asinine.  

The solution lies in the middle. A mix of safety protocols and accepting that Covid, like so much else, is going to take large numbers of lives. The US lost approx 60,000 lives last year to influenza. 60,000 wonderful lives that no one said jack stuff about.  We didn’t wear masks to save their precious lives nor did we social distance or even wash our hands more often for them. Why? Because we have a vaccine that is semi-effective? No. The fact is, we’ve made peace with our balance of influenza safety protocols and the massive number of deaths that it causes each and every year. Just like we do with every other thing that plagues us. Balance. The roadmap is there and we absolutely will end up there. But it’s an election year and we’ve convinced ourselves that this is the most important election in the history of the country, so the inevitable has to wait until after it to even be discussed. Spoiler Alert!  We all know how this story ends because we’ve seen it a hundred times already. 

I get the point, and it is well made.

If you notice I wrote with both numbers and percentages.  I didn't want anyone thinking that I didn't care about the 16 infants that died of Covid, or the nearly 10,000 infants that died of something else the past 6 months.

@Pedaldad posted:

I get the joke, but can you provide some hard evidence for the "outcomes outside of die that suck." with the rate of occurrence. I am not being sardonic.  I look very hard for this information and if you have a legitimate source with data, I'd like to look at it for myself.  If you don't, then I worry this is repeated conjecture that causes people to be paralyzed by irrational fear, like when they rely on media.

It makes me think of one of my partner's Amish patients.  My partner asked this Amish patient how their community was doing in the wake of this pandemic.  His reply was,  " We are doing fine.  We don't watch the news."

Are you asking me to provide hard evidence for "outcomes outside of die that suck"? Can we agree that "suck" is a subjective term? What information are you looking very hard for exactly? 

Looking at your history, do you have a horse in the race? Seems like you're just someone who likes to be the contrarian which is fine, and needed! but interested to know the end game....if there is one outside of internet troll....?

@TPM posted:

https://www.espn.com/college-f...ule-model-idle-teams

For those wondering about teams not competing this fall.

Thank you for this link TPM, but what a disingenuous way for the NCAA to go about this.  They have no control.  Six conferences have said "try to stop us", and the NCAA can't.   Now they think to insert themselves in practice guidelines for the remaining schools that aren't playing.  Give me a break.  Coaches and Athletic Departments are going to do whatever their Presidents/ Boards will allow and dare the NCAA to come after them for it.   

@nycdad posted:

Are you asking me to provide hard evidence for "outcomes outside of die that suck"? Can we agree that "suck" is a subjective term? What information are you looking very hard for exactly? 

Looking at your history, do you have a horse in the race? Seems like you're just someone who likes to be the contrarian which is fine, and needed! but interested to know the end game....if there is one outside of internet troll....?

Going to follow-up to this because I can see where it's going.....We can argue who is right, or who has that more "pithy" reply, but at the end of the day, do you think any of your contributions to this forum have helped anyone anyone on their baseball journey? Not sure mine have.....

Our local D3 is bringing kids in next week. They start out with half kids attending in person classes half the days, the other half the opposite days. Masks required except in dorm rooms.  They do that for two weeks and if things go well, the rules loosen.

Everyone is required to live on campus.

Classes being held pretty much every day, including Labor Day, so kids won't be tempted to go home. They have space set aside for people who test positive.

Kids leave for Thanksgiving, take finals online and don't come back til January.

It seems like a good plan. We'll see how ti works like in real life.

@nycdad posted:

Are you asking me to provide hard evidence for "outcomes outside of die that suck"? Can we agree that "suck" is a subjective term? What information are you looking very hard for exactly? 

Looking at your history, do you have a horse in the race? Seems like you're just someone who likes to be the contrarian which is fine, and needed! but interested to know the end game....if there is one outside of internet troll....?

To your first question the answer is;  YES, I am asking you (or anyone else) stating that their are adverse outcomes to Covid other than death to provide evidence of suck because that is what you wrote.  I've only seen conjecture and inflammatory news reports; I haven't seen valid documentation.  If it isn't obvious, I tend to look.

Second, Yes, we can agree that "suck" is subjective.  But it was your word to describe outcomes, not mine.  I used "adverse". 

No, I am not "trying to be contrarian".  I strive to be educated as I think we all should. Most seem to agree that this is an important issue.  For the record, I emphatically disagree with people that don't think baseball and sports are important in America.

Finally I have two horses in this race.  Number 1 is my son that I want to see compete is this year.  Number 2 is society and youth overall that I want to see thrive in this country.  We all should have horses in this race of one form or another.

I think this addresses all the concerns you expressed about my statements, so I want to return to your statement of  "other outcomes that suck".  Do you have any valid sources for that statement with  documented data?  I'd like to view them, again I strive to be educated,

 

Last edited by Pedaldad
@nycdad posted:

Going to follow-up to this because I can see where it's going.....We can argue who is right, or who has that more "pithy" reply, but at the end of the day, do you think any of your contributions to this forum have helped anyone anyone on their baseball journey? Not sure mine have.....

I don't know.

But I provide very little of my actual opinion.  If you really have reviewed my posts you will notice that most are based on evidence from reliable sources and data.  I have actually received private messages from multiple individuals on this forum either thanking me for providing info that they didn't know and sometimes requesting locations where they can look at things for themselves.  They are also trying to be educated.

You seem like an insightful person, and I think we both can agree that something really bad happened in NYC.  The death rate went up to between 7-8 times normal.  That is catastrophic.  So I would like to ask you, given the serious nature of that catastrophe, why would anyone want to make claims about this pandemic that that make it out to be worse than the horrible event that it already is without hard evidence of such? 

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