Coronavirus Safety Protocol - please read and discuss

[Trickalicious]

But then where would we ever find replacement out of shape, magoo-visioned, weekend warriors to suck the life out of the game AND are willing to to take way more money than they're worth?

[Futureshock]

But then where would we ever find replacement out of shape, magoo-visioned, weekend warriors to suck the life out of the game AND are willing to to take way more money than they're worth?

Washington D.C.

Oh wait, golfing is weekends

[Futureshock]

Saliva-based COVID-19 test receives emergency FDA approval

Posted by Mike Florio on August 15, 2020, 1:37 PM EDT

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The NBA and National Basketball Players Association funded the development by Yale University of a saliva-based COVID-19 test. On Saturday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued emergency authorization for public use of the test, known as SalivaDirect.

Designed for widespread public virus screening, Zach Lowe of ESPN.com explains that it likely will cost $15 to $20 for consumers.

Working with the NBA, Yale used the saliva test in conjunction with the nasal swab test, and the results “almost universally matched,” Lowe explains.

The saliva sample still must be sent away to a lab for testing. Ideally, someone eventually will develop a highly accurate saliva-based point-of-care test that will allow consumers to test themselves and secure the results at home, in minutes not hours.

To get to that point, however, the upper reaches of the federal government will first have to come to terms with the fact that more testing will result in more cases being detected and reported and counted.

[Whitley]

So in other words nothing will happen unless one of their friends can make a bunch of money.

[Passepartout]

Yeah as really just need more testing or in that of vaccines.

[Trickalicious]

Washington D.C.

You mean City with a Football Team?

[Futureshock]

Aaron Donald, Andrew Whitworth don’t see the benefits of wearing a face shield

Posted by Mike Florio on August 19, 2020, 10:17 PM EDT

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Earlier this month, Rams defensive tackle Aaron Donald made it clear that he won’t wear a face shield in 2020. On Wednesday, he reiterated his position, but he also made it clear that he’s not actively telling teammates to decline the piece of added protection developed by Oakley and the NFL.

He also made it clear he doesn’t see the benefit of wearing it, which indirectly will influence teammates to not wear it.

“[E]verybody makes their own decisions,” Donald told reporters. “We’re all grown men. In my opinion, I don’t think it’s helping nothing if you wear it. We’re still out there tackling each other, sweating on each other. So, that little mask right there ain’t going to protect nothing. If somebody [does have] the virus, we’re just going get it too, so we’ve just got to go out there and play and hopefully everybody’s good.”

Donald said he’s seen none of his teammates using it so far. One who apparently won’t be using it is tackle Andrew Whitworth.

“I kind of get the idea of it,” Whitworth told reporters on Wednesday. “I don’t really see how it would be beneficial. If you have ever been close to O-linemen when we’re sweating on a football field and exerting energy. If it’s got a hole, it’s going through there I can assure you because we’re exerting so much sweat and snot and spit and everything else.

“It’s a good idea, it sounded cool. But to me, I don’t think that some of the risks outweighs — as far as the coronavirus stuff — but also the physical risk because you start really looking at, if you slow down tape and watch collisions and how much that helmet moves and those face masks move and the impacts, having something plastic against your face, especially kind of the material and all that, I would just worry about a cut, just scratches if it gets stuck in your face or your jaw somehow at the bottom of a pile. I just think guys weren’t really comfortable with, ‘Hey, that’s just something that, you know what, it looks neat,’ and maybe some guys will wear it. But I think overall, all the stuff you’ve got on, the impacts you’re going through, wearing something like that, I just don’t see a lot of guys being comfortable with that in the field of play.”

If, indeed, the NFL is doing all it can to keep the virus out of team facilities, the question of whether it makes sense to use one more device during games is a good one — especially if that device will make players less comfortable, and if it ultimately will not do much to counter the reality that players will still be breathing, coughing, spitting, sweating, and bleeding on each other. Absent hard proof that the face shield will make a major difference, it’s going to be very difficult to get players to place anything that could restrict their ability to properly breathe, or that would make them feel more confined while already trying to perform with layers or heavy pads and a helmet and a face mask.

And if there truly is a significant benefit from using the face shield, the league needs to do a better job of getting the message through to players who fail to see enough of a benefit to justify the added restriction on their ability to give everything they have physically to do their jobs.

[Futureshock]

NFL, NFLPA adjust testing protocols to account for past positive tests

Posted by Mike Florio on August 19, 2020, 2:42 PM EDT

USA TODAY Sports

The NFL and NFL Players Association realize that adjustments will be needed as more is learned about COVID-19. The latest adjustment is one that will involve less, not more, testing.

Based on CDC guidance regarding the chances of reinfection following a positive COVID-19 diagnosis, the NFL and NFLPA have agreed that anyone with a confirmed positive result will not be tested for 90 days. This meshes with the conclusion that anyone who has the virus will not catch it again for at least three months, thanks to the presence of COVID-19 antibodies.

Despite the relaxed testing requirements, anyone who has tested positive will still be required to wear masks and engage in other efforts aimed at limiting the spread of the virus. In other words, beyond the suspension of testing, nothing else will change.

The NFL continues to have a very low rate of positive test results. Some wonder whether that has resulted at least in part from the fact that numerous players and coaches have had the virus and still have the antibodies.

[Futureshock]

https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.co...?cid=rotoworld

Lurie on the attack. Listening to Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie on Sunday—he did a Zoom call with the media for the first time—you could hear how how hard it was for him to hide his frustration with the political powers that be. Though he never mentioned President Trump, you be the judge who he was talking about late Sunday afternoon when he said: “We have almost 200,000 deaths in the United States. This is from COVID-19 alone. Thirty thousand in the month of August. Over 1,000 in the United States every single day. So if I told you that yesterday, five Boeing 737s crashed in the United States, everybody died, well, that’s every single day right now, every single day. It’s been like that for many weeks. We are 4 percent of the world’s population [and have] 21 percent of the fatalities. . . . We’re the wealthiest country in the world, and 21 percent of the deaths? We have to own this. We have to own the questions of leadership. We have to own the questions of policy, and there’s a lot to be discussed here on that in the future. It’s heartbreaking. These are needless deaths. Needless. We are an embarrassment and a tragic embarrassment.”

[Futureshock]

J.C. TRETTERC, CLEVELAND BROWNS
The NFLPA is calling for the league to continue daily COVID-19 testing as the regular season approaches.


The agreement on daily testing among players, coaches, and staff runs out at the end of this week. In a column on the challenges of conducting a season during the pandemic, NFLPA President J.C. Tretter said teams should continue daily testing beyond this week. Tretter cited the successes of the league's COVID-19 protocols in pushing for daily testing into the regular season. From August 12-20, there were 58,397 COVID-19 tests conducted on players and staff members across the NFL. Not one player tested positive, while six staffers did.

RELATED:

• Roger Goodell

SOURCE: NFLPA
Aug 31, 2020, 12:43 PM

[Marko69]

USA per 100,000 pop still coping better with CV19 than us here in the UK if you look at the top graph.

https://www.statista.com/chart/amp/21170/coronavirus-death-rate-worldwide/

[Futureshock]

Roger Goodell on COVID-19 numbers: We’re not patting ourselves on the back yet

Posted by Charean Williams on September 1, 2020, 4:11 PM EDT

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The NFL released its latest COVID-19 numbers, and they continue to offer optimism that perhaps the league will make it through the 2020 season.

The regular season is scheduled to begin a week from Thursday.

“We’re not patting ourselves on the back yet,” NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said. “We’re just at the eve of the season, and we’re looking to start and complete the season on time and complete, but in a very safe way for everybody who is participating.”

Goodell made a surprise appearance on a media conference call Tuesday. Much of Goodell’s nine minutes were spent on issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Earlier Tuesday, the NFL release announced COVID-19 testing results between Aug. 21-29. Of the 58,621 tests given to 8,739 players and team personnel over that span, only 10 came back positive. Four of those positives came on 23,279 tests administered to players while the other six came via 35,342 tests of other team personnel.

“We have been really fortunate,” Goodell said. “The cases of COVID-19 are very low across the league. It is a testament to the plans but most importantly to the diligence to the players, the teams and their staffs. I would tell you that we still have more work to do. We are not going to get comfortable. We will remain vigilant, resilient and flexible and basically adapt to circumstances as needed with public health as our No. 1 priority as we have all this offseason.”

Goodell said the league is learning “at every opportunity.”

During a meeting with ownership on the advice of its medical advisors, the NFL tweaked some of its testing protocols, travel protocols and access to the locker room by non-players.

“I think the big thing for us, again, is not to get comfortable,” Goodell said. “The protocols are working. But we’re dealing with a lot of uncertainty here. This is a pandemic that we’re still learning about. We’ve had to put together an entire infrastructure of testing across our league, getting results very quickly, but we really have to obviously adapt to the medical community here and rely on our experts that have been wonderful in putting together this plan. But now as you’re executing on you, you have to be willing to adapt to that, and you have to change. We’ve already made changes in our protocols, made changes to our testing. We will looking to further changes to our testing as we get into the regular season. We’ll be getting into new aspects with traveling that we have to be focused on.”

[Futureshock]

Big Ten says it will play “at the appropriate time” after call from Trump

Posted by Michael David Smith on September 1, 2020, 2:00 PM EDT

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President Trump is urging the Big Ten to put its football teams back on the field, but the conference says it continues to be guided by concerns about the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Trump, who has said he wants college football to be played in the fall, set up a call with the Big Ten, which has postponed its 2020 season indefinitely.

“A White House representative reached out to Big Ten Conference Commissioner Kevin Warren on Monday, August 31, 2020 to facilitate a phone call between President Donald J. Trump and Commissioner Warren. On Tuesday, September 1, 2020 Commissioner Warren and the President had a productive conversation,” the Big Ten’s statement said. “The Big Ten Conference and its Return to Competition Task Force, on behalf of the Big Ten Council of Presidents and Chancellors (COP/C) are exhausting every resource to help student-athletes get back to playing the sports they love, at the appropriate time, in the safest and healthiest way possible.”

Trump characterized the conversation somewhat differently, seeming more optimistic about the chances of starting the football season soon.

“Had a very productive conversation with Kevin Warren, Commissioner of the Big Ten Conference, about immediately starting up Big Ten football,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “Would be good (great!) for everyone – Players, Fans, Country. On the one yard line!”

The Big Ten indicated that 11 of its 14 schools agreed with the decision not to play in the fall, and that the other three are willing to go along with it. The conference doesn’t seem eager to put its players back on the field, no matter what the president wants.

[Futureshock]

Deal for rapid point-of-care tests could be “game-changer” for Pac-12

Posted by Charean Williams on September 3, 2020, 8:01 PM EDT

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The Pac-12 followed the Big Ten in postponing fall sports. But now, after securing a deal for daily COVID-19 tests that can yield results in 15 minutes, Pac-12 sports could return sooner than later.

The conference announced a partnership with Quidel Corporation for daily testing of athletes for coronavirus.

Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott called the development a “game-changer.”

“I’m hopeful today’s news and what’s coming from the NCAA will provide a pathway to start before Jan. 1,” possibly in men’s and women’s basketball, Scott said Thursday, via Jeff Metcalfe of the Arizona Republic.

The NCAA men’s and women’s basketball oversight committee has proposed a Nov. 25 competition start date for the 2020-21 season, which the Division I Council still must approve.

Scott and Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren have discussed starting their conference football schedules at the same time to allow for a modified bowl schedule.

The SEC, ACC and Big 12 soon begin football in the traditional fall season.

“When we made our decision not to start competition before Jan. 1, that was based on the information in front of us,” Scott said. “Leading with what public health authorities will allow us to do and not having to the kind of testing we will now have access to by the end of the month.”

[Fraquar]

BiG 10 understand that playing a season at all is a NEGATIVE investment if they don't play games with people in the stands. So sure, you can test the players daily and get quick results, but what about the 100,000+ that you expect to attend the game to make those ridiculous proftis? The week long tailgates that generate crazy local revenue?