I mean this is a message board.

Read this before being so quick to scoff or get mad about a hoops tournament. And before you impugn the source, this is from a conservative Rupert Murdoch-owned publication.

https://nypost.com/2020/03/10/italian-doctor-at-heart-of-... /

I am and have always been a proud under-reacter to basically everything, so my natural reaction is to be annoyed by this and think it is an overkill. But I do understand it is a complicated situation and there comes a time where measures like this are necessary. We have experts saying this is necessary and other experts saying it is not. Like it or not, there is a line for how deadly and widespread a virus is before these actions occur. For me, it feels like the virus is both not as deadly and not as widespread to warrant this reaction yet.

I also wonder what kind of standard we are setting and how it will be followed in the future. Both with the staying power of this virus, but inevitable future viruses and other public health concerns. It kind of reminds me of how schools have inconsistent standards with snow days. They're quicker to cancel when they have plenty of calamity days left, but there have been times where they keep school open when conditions were worse than on previous days that were cancelled. Same thing here, it is easy to handle some empty sporting events and a couple weeks of online classes...but what about when that turns into months and months?

Also...the politicizing of this is really annoying. Come on.

The issue is not simply those attending a game - it is that if those attending come in contact with the virus (which is becoming more and more likely) they become carriers - and it quickly spreads to those less able to handle the virus. We have entered the containment stage.

Anyone know if our band and cheerleaders are going? I saw on another forum that Miami's band is not making the trip.

Yes very true and we are ill equipped to deal with the problem. We have only tested 5000 people, while China and Korea have tested millions and Italy has tested hundreds of thousands.
CDC Director Robert Redfield told POLITICO on Tuesday that he is not confident that U.S. labs have an adequate stock of the supplies used to extract genetic material from any virus in a patient’s sample — a critical step in coronavirus testing.

“The availability of those reagents is obviously being looked at,” he said, referring to the chemicals used for preparing samples. “I’m confident of the actual test that we have, but as people begin to operationalize the test, they realize there’s other things they need to do the test.”

The coronavirus task force convened by the White House is also aware of the shortages, and one official said members are working on it.

The growing scarcity of these “RNA extraction” kits is the latest trouble for U.S. labs, which have struggled to implement widespread coronavirus testing in the seven weeks since the country diagnosed its first case. Epidemiologists and public health officials say that the delayed rollout, caused in part by a botched CDC test, has masked the scope of the U.S. outbreak and hobbled efforts to limit it.


If enough processing kits aren’t available, the risk that testing will be disrupted is “huge,” said Michael Mina, associate medical director of molecular diagnostics at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

“RNA extraction is the first step in being able to perform” a coronavirus test, he said. “If we cannot perform this step, the [coronavirus] test cannot be performed.”

Qiagen, a major supplier of the kits, confirmed that its product is backordered due to “the extraordinary pace” at which the world has increased coronavirus testing over the last few weeks.

Public health labs across the U.S. have tested more than 5,000 people, according to the Trump administration. HHS Secretary Alex Azar told lawmakers on Tuesday that U.S. labs’ capacity could grow to 10,000-20,000 people per day by the end of the week.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.politico.com/amp/news/20...

I think this is the most missed point here. A lot of people are citing low positive case numbers and using that as evidence that cases are rare. In the US, we're not testing people at the rate of other countries. We have no idea what those numbers mean.

But it is clear to me that everybody on both sides of the political isle acknowledge this is a big deal in their own way. The Trump admin is about to push for a huge economic stimulus between now and November to combat the global recession that's looming. If this wasn't a real threat, would they do that?

This is not what Dr. Fauci and Dr. Redfield said, Fauci said we could have millions of infections if we don’t act quickly. I know emergency management officials in New York and New Jersey and they are saying something totally different. I don’t know which fox show that you are watching, but they are lying to you. Dr. Fauci is a republican, Angela Merle said 60% of Germans could be infected. We will be building tents outside of hospitals to test people so that they don’t have to enter emergency rooms. Let’s be rational and not like Matt gaetz, who is a lackey. The congresses doctor was just advised that 75-150 million could be infected, this can be seen on Axios.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.axios.com/congressional-...

WHO just declared a global pandemic. More and more stuff will get canceled and/or performed in empty venues.

This is pretty sobering for anyone still worried about basketball. It includes a lot of sourcing and background, unlike the posts accusing DeWine and others of overreacting:

https://www.vox.com/2020/3/10/21171217/coronavirus-covid-...

Washington's governor has banned events of more than 250 people. The NCAA has first and second round games scheduled for Spokane. Wonder if they'll change locations or limit ticket sales.

It does seem to me though that only banning certain events, like basketball games, seems like a piecemeal or halfhearted effort. Either make people stay at home or don't. A basketball games is cancelled. A parade is cancelled. OK so those people all don't meet at one venue. Big deal. They in all likelihood are still going to leave their homes during those times. They will go to restaurants, they will go to grocery stores, they will go to movie theaters, they will go to bars, church services, salons/barbershops, etc. They will still find a way to physically interact with other people.

Boston, Chicago and Cleveland have all cancelled their St. Patrick Day parades. I don't know about Boston but I'm pretty sure the drunk hordes that show up for the parade up here in Cleveland aren't staying home next Tuesday. Bars will still be packed and the virus will still spread.

So if we're really concerned with implementing effective containment, either cancel all events or don't bother.

Golden State will play a game with no fans. I hope that we can ramp up testing in the next few weeks so that we can know where we stand.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/11/golden-state-warriors-to-...

I will say, I saw Northwestern football paused it's renewal campaign to allow folks to get over the threat of Corona and impact of economics from the last few weeks. I hope more schools and teams consider this approach, especially if this goes longer into spring