But theoretically if all kids are tested and tested negative. two kids who are both negative are going to make a positive? i can understand if you want to make this case against high school sports but for not what college is discussing. If all participants and everyone involved with football program tested twice per week. i would suggest to you they are much less like to get covid from football as say going to class with the general public. [/QUOTE]This is definitely what the strategy would have to look like for college football to take place.
The problem is that the testing infrastructure is poor, which makes pulling the above off a) difficult and b) expensive.
Some context that's important:
1) There are currently two approved tests. The first is a rapid test (which gets results in 30 minutes), the second is the 'swab test' (which gives results in 5-7 days). I've purchased a bunch for employees of mine, and a safe estimate is $100 per test.
2) The rapid test is considered unreliable. So much so that many urgent care clinics -- most even -- choose not to offer them. The guidance with rapid testing is that you can take the positive results at face value, but not negative results. All negative results from a rapid test should be sent to a lab for further analysis, which means a 5-7 day delay.
3) If you have access to your own laboratory (which some large Universities may) you can get test results back much faster.
4) A conservative estimate for a single football team and various employees needed to run their operations would be 150 people who need regular testing. You're proposing doing that 2x a week. That's a 30k/week testing bill. Over the course of a shortened season, that's $400,000 for the tests alone.
5) Week 1 is upon you. It's Monday and you play Saturday. You have testing scheduled for Monday and Thursday that week. You test players Monday. Let's say you're very lucky, and you get results back Wednesday. You have a positive case, and due to contact tracing, have another 40 people who were potentially exposed because they were in the locker room at the same time, or live on the same floor. You quarantine and test those 40 immediately. You've increased that week's testing cost by 15%. When do you get those results back? What if you get the positive cases back on Thursday? How do you test before Saturday? Oh, and cool little bonus, now you realize that your testing costs aren't fixed. Exciting.
6) So because testing delays make this complicated -- and downright impossible if you can't get results for 5-7 days like the rest of the country -- you figure out special testing access. Maybe the University's hospital gives your tests priority. Maybe you pay LabCorp a lot to prioritize your tests. Now your testing costs are much higher.
7) You're also, you know, just playing football. While the unemployment rate is at 12%, employers are struggling with the same challenges getting people back to work, keeping them insured, and your student body is paying full tuition without any of the same safeguards, you're dumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into playing. . .football. When your mission is to educate, and you insist in the courts over and over that these kids are students first and athletes second.
8) And let's say you get testing priority. That means you're delaying others' test results so you can play football.
So that brings me back to if it is safe enough for people you are not testing regularly to go to school or work. it should not be unsafe for people with these protocols to play football at least not until you have evidence that shows they cant do it.
It's not actually safe enough. We just sh*t the bed so badly making it safe enough that organizations all over the country -- schools, universities, employers -- are forced into choosing between survival and putting students/employees, etc. in a situation that is not yet safe. The debate is about how unsafe.
I am not saying it is safe i am not saying we should play i am saying shutting it down with really the only evidence you have is saying people following protocols are right now much more safe then people who aren't does not make sense.
There's no question that access to regular testing and structure that forces social distancing and responsibility keeps people safer than those that don't have that. The question is why, in a society that's failed to provide that pretty much across the board, college football players are next in line.
And more specifically, for Universities, the question should be why athletics gets higher priority than academic programs when it comes to testing, social distancing, and the like. If I'm a student paying 70k a year for a mechanical engineering degree at Duke and I'm spending my days watching somebody on Zoom while my University spends a million dollars on testing resources so Duke's football team can go 3-7 in ACC play, I'm showing up at the President's office with a guillotine.
when buffalo says they have given almost 900 tests to athletes and only 6 positives and none in a month doesn't make sense they cant play.
Take a look at University of Buffalo's balance sheet and then make a compelling case that they spent that $100,000 wisely. And then pitch they keep spending like that until January.
[QUOTE=SVAC83]I just believe it is a liability issue not a safety one and if the universities or leagues say we don't want to play because we are afraid of being sued then lets not play lets just be honest about why we are not playing.