No fans allowed at NCAA Tournament Sites

Are you and your “likers” that dumb? The issue is that you nice healthy young people can carry the virus and pass it around like candy at a parade. Jesus. Do you ever think beyond your own comfort?
So let's send them all home from college for a month where they can come in contact with older parents, grandparents, etc...
 
From the American Hospital Association webinar yesterday: Good to know you DGAF about 480,000 dead Americans. This is that last I'll post about this, you'll be glad to know.

AHA.png
 
Charles Barkley and Dick Vitale have both called on the NCAA to cancel the tournament. Me thinks its only a matter of time.
 
Charles Barkley and Dick Vitale have both called on the NCAA to cancel the tournament. Me thinks its only a matter of time.
Why is playing the tournament with no fans more risky than day to day lives? I get the idea that huge crowds spread it faster. But if there is no huge crowd, what's the big deal?
 
Thing is I dont see how you can postpone the NCAA tournament. All those locations have to be planned out and reserved. Not to mention the students graduate soon. Also, the NBA draft is in June and the combine is in May.

Wonder if Des Moines could make the Well available?
 
To all of those in the "this is all a bunch of hysteria over nothing" camp, you might be right, but there is some really good evidence that you might be wrong. The fact of the matter is that there is a ton of uncertainty in this situation. But the downside of doing nothing and being wrong is catastrophic. There are costs to the measures being taken as well, especially economic ones, but experts in infectious disease around the world are pretty much in agreement that this is a big deal. Again, that doesn't guarantee they are right, but if we are not going to take THEIR advice, who IS gonna provide guidance?

It is true that the majority of individuals who get COVID-19 have fairly mild symptoms (similar to the flu or a cold). But it is also likely true that COVID-19 has a mortality right that is about a couple orders of magnitude higher than influenza (likely around 1 in 100, though hard to pin down because difficult to know how many had it and didn't realize it; influenza has a mortality rate around 1 in 10,000).

COVID-19 is not nearly as deadly as SARS, MERS, Zika, etc. (they had mortality rates between 10-30%). But those viruses did not spread very fast or easily. Flu is such a big problem (10,000s die in the US each year) not because it is so deadly, but because it spreads so fast, and people are infectious before they are even symptomatic. And it spreads primarily through children (those germy little bastards), who are always co-mingling.

This March 6 WHO Situation Report has a piece on the important differences between Flu and COVID-19. COVID-19 does not spread AS fast as flu, but it is close. People with COVID-19 may be infectious before they are symptomatic, though that is not definite, and it certainly does not seem to be as bad as Flu. However, each person with COVID-19 tends to infect more additional people than each person with the Flu. Each infected COVID-19 individual likely infects between 2-2.5 others. The numbers for Flu tend to be lower, but they are very situation-dependent. The reason COVID-19 is so infectious is because of an incredibly high viral shed rate.

There is no way to stop COVID-19 from spreading through our country. It already has a good foothold, and it is impossible to prevent all interpersonal contact (and as we have seen from this thread, many people are not going to follow the basic Public Health guidelines because they think this is a bunch of millennial bullshit).

What the PH departments are trying to do is to slow the spread. This will give our Healthcare system the best chance of dealing with the problem effectively. If there is a crush of 100,000 infections in the next month, and 50% of healthcare providers are in quarantine, things will be very bad.

Some estimate that roughly 20-60% of the US population will contract COVID-19. Mortality estimates are around 1-3%. If we take the low end of those estimates, 20% of 330 million people = 66 million. If 1% of those die, that is 660,000 deaths. Even if the mortality rate estimate is off by an order of magnitude, that would be 60,000 deaths, added onto the 20,000 - 50,000 annual deaths that typically occur due to seasonal flu.

So why cancel the NCAA tournament if it only effects the team personnel (68 teams x 25? people per team = 1,700 people)? Because the PH departments are trying to sever as many nodes as possible. Sending students off campus is an obvious one, because you are severing thousands to millions of nodes. But every node severed counts, and they all add up. Playing a game is no worse than going to a restaurant, but I think people are rightfully concerned about refusing to sever those nodes for the purposes of sports/entertainment when we are asking people to sever nodes in others aspects of their lives.

So what if we get to the end of 2020 and only 5,000 people have died in the US from COVID-19? Do we conclude all the hysteria, the $billions of lost production, was a waste? Again, no way to know. It could be that the measures taken prevented that 5,000 from becoming 50,000? Or it could be that it never would have gotten that bad (current experiences in other countries tend to refute that)? We will likely never know, but there will be the ability to compare between countries and their respective preventative measures.

The individual risk to any one of you is small, so don't live your life in anxiety and panic. But the public risk is real, and we can take responsible and straightforward steps to minimize it. Take care everyone.
 
As others have said, there is no way they can go ahead with the NCAA tournament.

The cancelation mania is understandable. I just hope the world shutdown is worth it because it's going to cause a lot of damage. The economic damage will quickly spread across the world, just like the virus itself.
 
As others have said, there is no way they can go ahead with the NCAA tournament.

The cancelation mania is understandable. I just hope the world shutdown is worth it because it's going to cause a lot of damage. The economic damage will quickly spread across the world, just like the virus itself.

This is officially rock bottom

 
To all of those in the "this is all a bunch of hysteria over nothing" camp, you might be right, but there is some really good evidence that you might be wrong. The fact of the matter is that there is a ton of uncertainty in this situation. But the downside of doing nothing and being wrong is catastrophic. There are costs to the measures being taken as well, especially economic ones, but experts in infectious disease around the world are pretty much in agreement that this is a big deal. Again, that doesn't guarantee they are right, but if we are not going to take THEIR advice, who IS gonna provide guidance?

It is true that the majority of individuals who get COVID-19 have fairly mild symptoms (similar to the flu or a cold). But it is also likely true that COVID-19 has a mortality right that is about a couple orders of magnitude higher than influenza (likely around 1 in 100, though hard to pin down because difficult to know how many had it and didn't realize it; influenza has a mortality rate around 1 in 10,000).

COVID-19 is not nearly as deadly as SARS, MERS, Zika, etc. (they had mortality rates between 10-30%). But those viruses did not spread very fast or easily. Flu is such a big problem (10,000s die in the US each year) not because it is so deadly, but because it spreads so fast, and people are infectious before they are even symptomatic. And it spreads primarily through children (those germy little bastards), who are always co-mingling.

This March 6 WHO Situation Report has a piece on the important differences between Flu and COVID-19. COVID-19 does not spread AS fast as flu, but it is close. People with COVID-19 may be infectious before they are symptomatic, though that is not definite, and it certainly does not seem to be as bad as Flu. However, each person with COVID-19 tends to infect more additional people than each person with the Flu. Each infected COVID-19 individual likely infects between 2-2.5 others. The numbers for Flu tend to be lower, but they are very situation-dependent. The reason COVID-19 is so infectious is because of an incredibly high viral shed rate.

There is no way to stop COVID-19 from spreading through our country. It already has a good foothold, and it is impossible to prevent all interpersonal contact (and as we have seen from this thread, many people are not going to follow the basic Public Health guidelines because they think this is a bunch of millennial bullshit).

What the PH departments are trying to do is to slow the spread. This will give our Healthcare system the best chance of dealing with the problem effectively. If there is a crush of 100,000 infections in the next month, and 50% of healthcare providers are in quarantine, things will be very bad.

Some estimate that roughly 20-60% of the US population will contract COVID-19. Mortality estimates are around 1-3%. If we take the low end of those estimates, 20% of 330 million people = 66 million. If 1% of those die, that is 660,000 deaths. Even if the mortality rate estimate is off by an order of magnitude, that would be 60,000 deaths, added onto the 20,000 - 50,000 annual deaths that typically occur due to seasonal flu.

So why cancel the NCAA tournament if it only effects the team personnel (68 teams x 25? people per team = 1,700 people)? Because the PH departments are trying to sever as many nodes as possible. Sending students off campus is an obvious one, because you are severing thousands to millions of nodes. But every node severed counts, and they all add up. Playing a game is no worse than going to a restaurant, but I think people are rightfully concerned about refusing to sever those nodes for the purposes of sports/entertainment when we are asking people to sever nodes in others aspects of their lives.

So what if we get to the end of 2020 and only 5,000 people have died in the US from COVID-19? Do we conclude all the hysteria, the $billions of lost production, was a waste? Again, no way to know. It could be that the measures taken prevented that 5,000 from becoming 50,000? Or it could be that it never would have gotten that bad (current experiences in other countries tend to refute that)? We will likely never know, but there will be the ability to compare between countries and their respective preventative measures.

The individual risk to any one of you is small, so don't live your life in anxiety and panic. But the public risk is real, and we can take responsible and straightforward steps to minimize it. Take care everyone.
This is a really good post. You should try to do one that goes into the detail of how bad the economy will get and how many deaths will be associated with the fallout if we try to drag this out over a year or years instead of letting it run its course as quickly as possible. There probably isnt a poster on here that could word it and back it up with numbers as well as you. Perhaps add suicide numbers from the great depression and factor them into today's population.
 

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