Balta1701

It took less than 2 months for the irresponsible "reopen" states to trigger explosions so big that basically all their hospitals are full right now. You can have stuff open and not in lockdown but you have to be very careful about it, you have to respect how big the threat is. The moment you think you have this thing beaten it will come roaring back. Illinois has been responsible enough that you can probably have some businesses and schools open if you have proper protection and an established tracing program (which Illinois does not currently have but is supposedly working on?). Crowds of 7600 people (20% capacity)...well, as I said, if 1 person tests positive, can you contact and test all 7600 within 2 days? If not, then you aren't ready for it...and no state is set up to do that.

Bringing sports back will help some I agree. Triggering a second outbreak will not, I promise. Put them on TV.

It's too late and now it will be months before cases go down, but this is finally a move towards at least slowing the rate of increase. I still think we hit 10k cases a day in a couple weeks statewide.

How is it for people's mental health when they can't go to a grocery store without being scared because a governor decided to open things up when it wasn't under control? I have to see a doctor often enough that I can track what the Texas governor has done to my blood pressure this year. How does the 2nd lockdown do for people's mental health?

After all, it's not like you pose any danger to anyone else if you catch it.

It won't be a crowd on the mound I can tell you that. Against the rules.

Worth remembering...they may not have fans in the ballpark again next year, or at the very least in Dec/Jan there's a good chance they have absolutely no idea if there will be fans in the ballpark, so random extensions this offseason....

FWIW, the new Astros GM is saying he'll be aggressive trading for players this season.

1. This virus has not mutated rapidly, not in a way that fundamentally changes its mode of attack so far, so that does suggest that a new strain is a limited worry. If there was a new strain that eliminated immunity, then we will have no choice but to continue emergency protocols longer. The longer this virus is out there and the more people it infects, the more chances there are for that to happen, stressing the importance of beating it soon. 2. From a public health perspective, if 60-70% of people have been given a vaccine, that is enough to start breaking chains. So maybe an infected person comes to the ballpark and they infect 5 unvaccinated people (instead of the 15 they might hit right now), but each of those chains breaks within a week or two because it can’t travel to vaccinated people. Once that happens, then as people recover, the virus starts to die away, and you actually win the fight. The team might still have some liability in that case but it doesn’t turn into a new spreading nightmare if the wrong person comes in. This thing moves so quickly that one mistake in the wrong spot turns into dozens of cases, and if you don’t stop it then those cases are hundreds, then thousands, and all the work you thought you did is gone. Is it worth another 3 month statewide lockdown to have fans for 60 games?

Yes, Texas currently says you can have 50% capacity of fans at sporting events. Texas has also filled the largest hospital in the world with covid cases in a period of about 3 weeks. These rules are how we got that accomplishment. Our governor is quite literally working on behalf of the coronavirus. Giving it 15000 people walking in crowds, cheering, eating in a single area? It’s a gift to the virus. The fact that Texas thought this was a good idea should be a gigantic warning sign. Do the opposite of what this governor did. Every time. It’s the only smart thing you can do.

There’s literally several cases last weekend at a golf tournament. Texas was idiotic and I said so at the time. Allowing even 4000 fans into a ballpark is idiotic. It works as long as you have 0 sick people come in.

That's literally how Texas justified re-opening stuff including athletic facilities, and now they have an out of control outbreak. So what is your state going to do that Texas didn't do to make sure that continues happening? Everything we're seeing right now was baked into the cake in May, so you wait weeks before you see the damage you did.

This is a state/local thing right now and they'd be the ones who have to run it.

So if one person tests positive and you allowed the stadium to 20% capacity, is the state prepared to make what, 2500 phone calls in a day for contact tracing and isolate 7800 people for a week?

Has anyone seen whether there will be a purchasable baseball package for the TV networks this year?

The EU is about as good of an analog for the US as you can get. They're talking about allowing tourism this summer because of the difference between the two areas.

Texas is experiencing a surge in cases right now. It's about to fill up our entire hospital system, and it will only take 10,000 cases per day to do it. Over the course of a full year, with overwhelmed hospitals, that would give you 3.65 million people who had the virus at a rte of 10,000 new cases per day. Texas's population is 29 million, meaning that you would have more than 5 years of 10,000 cases per day in this state before you start to approach herd immunity. When your hospitals are overwhelmed and can't deal with regular illnesses, and people who know they are high risk cannot afford to go out...you are destroying your economy. It does not function in settings like New York, or Texas now, or Florida or Arizona. The governors can only stick their head in the ground for so long, but literally a month and a half of being "partially open for business" triggered a crisis in multiple states. 2 months of open followed by 3 months of lockdowns is not a functioning economy, and a health care system that is completely overwhelmed is also not a functioning economy. If you want anything resembling a functioning economy, you have no choice but to come up with a plan to crush the thing.

The EU and pretty much every other country is banning travel to and from the US without 14 day quarantines, so tourism in this country is pretty much going to be hammered too.

Now that it's back to spreading rapidly among other populations in the "re-opened" states...that's going to make it harder and harder to avoid future outbreaks in nursing homes too.

I'd be stunned if he isn't.

Rick Renteria just handed me his September 15th 2020 lineup and everything is blank except it already has Yonder Alonso batting 4th.

The Pitchers are all probably going to start off going 3-4 innings for at least the first few weeks, so you're going to need the equivalent of an 8-9 person rotation to start the season (Hence the 30 man roster to open the year). When rosters contract, trading someone like Gio at the deadline to a team where their pitchers have struggled more than expected...could make sense.

one of my colleagues is dealing with this right now - he had a major, unknown virus about 8 years ago, nearly died, wound up with permanent issues because of it. Even if Texas was as under-control as Illinois, his kids couldn't go because they can't risk bringing something back to him. So for your state, you also have to have some version of an e-schooling option available, because otherwise kids with familial issues like that will all be homeschooled.

Unknown, would depend on symptoms. In the draft version released in May it was 7 days followed by 2 negative tests and the MLBPA thought that was not enough, the WHO recommendation is 14 days. But that's not the only thing you have to worry about, guys don't test positive the day they get exposed, so if 1 guy tests positive you have to worry about the whole team potentially having been exposed. https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/29186093/the-immensity-mlb-plan-return-daunting-health-safety-protocol