COVID-19 (f/k/a "the Coronavirus")

[pbiflyer]

You know what it says to me?  They didn’t prepare for this possibility.

You are describing every reopening plan in the US.

[MarquetteDano]

Premier League in UK and other European soccer leagues play all kinds of games in all kinds of cities and did not have that many problems.  And soccer players are consistently shoving one another and close to one another.

Understand we have it worse than Europe but UK hasn't done that great with Covid.  Amazing that baseball season is already in trouble.

[Jockey]

As I understand it, each team has 30 players on their roster this year, plus a 30 man taxi squad that they can dip into as needed.    I am guessing that they are trying to figure out how best to move forward.     What would it do to the integrity of the game to quarantine all 30 of the active roster and replace them with the taxi squad for two weeks?

These are the times we live in.    If MLB is going to have this challenge after the first weekend of play, what will the schools look like two weeks in?

The only solution is to quarantine all 30 and bring in 30 minor leaguers. And, yes, that completely undermines the integrity of MLB as a whole. There would be a team/teams that get in the playoffs solely because they got to play against minor leaguers while other teams didn't have that option.

[Jockey]

The Athletic is reporting that Yankees-Phillies also canceled, and "emergency meeting" for all MLB clubs is set for today.

It's hard to get a handle on this when there is not proper testing. Unless a team is getting results in 1 or 2 days, the tests are basically meaningless.

[cheebs09]

It's hard to get a handle on this when there is not proper testing. Unless a team is getting results in 1 or 2 days, the tests are basically meaningless.

I saw the tests that the Marlins took this morning would return in 12-24 hours.

[Jockey]

It's simple math..#deaths/total cases. That's how you get the ACCURATE %. You can use multiplying by 100 to distort the Numbers. Otherwise, how in the hell/why would you multiply by 100?? That has nothing to do with it.

Do you have any concept of decimals and percentages? This is stuff you should have known by 5th or 6th grade.

[The Hippie Satan of Hyperbole]

Premier League in UK and other European soccer leagues play all kinds of games in all kinds of cities and did not have that many problems.  And soccer players are consistently shoving one another and close to one another.

Understand we have it worse than Europe but UK hasn't done that great with Covid.  Amazing that baseball season is already in trouble.

Western Europe as a whole has done much better than we have.  England's seven day positive average has been droppng since mid May.  Last week, they had just over 4,000 people test positive.  We had over 150,000. 

Adjusted for the number of people in the respective countries, the US had over five times as many new positive tests last week.  And the trends are in the wrong directions.

[Jockey]

I saw the tests that the Marlins took this morning would return in 12-24 hours.

That's a good start. I know there were backlogs a week or two ago.

[Pakuni]

Premier League in UK and other European soccer leagues play all kinds of games in all kinds of cities and did not have that many problems.  And soccer players are consistently shoving one another and close to one another.

Understand we have it worse than Europe but UK hasn't done that great with Covid.  Amazing that baseball season is already in trouble.

Same for Italy and Spain, which weren't exactly spared from the pandemic. And as you note, there's a lot more "close contact" in soccer than baseball.

[MU Fan in Connecticut]

The only solution is to quarantine all 30 and bring in 30 minor leaguers. And, yes, that completely undermines the integrity of MLB as a whole. There would be a team/teams that get in the playoffs solely because they got to play against minor leaguers while other teams didn't have that option.

Aren't The Marlins basically a minor league team anyway?

[Pakuni]

Aren't The Marlins basically a minor league team anyway?

Why the teal?

[MarquetteDano]

Western Europe as a whole has done much better than we have.  England's seven day positive average has been droppng since mid May.  Last week, they had just over 4,000 people test positive.  We had over 150,000. 

Adjusted for the number of people in the respective countries, the US had over five times as many new positive tests last week.  And the trends are in the wrong directions.

Yeah.  It is really where we are now,  not the past.  Europe (incl the UK) is just in a better spot right now.

[The Hippie Satan of Hyperbole]

Yeah.  It is really where we are now,  not the past.  Europe (incl the UK) is just in a better spot right now.

This is what’s so frustrating. We were doing the right things. And then we weren’t. And largely still aren’t.

I mean we have posters who are still downplaying this and not understanding that we have to fix this before we get back to normal.

Basically our national policy is hope and pray for a vaccine.

[injuryBug]

This is what’s so frustrating. We were doing the right things. And then we weren’t. And largely still aren’t.

I mean we have posters who are still downplaying this and not understanding that we have to fix this before we get back to normal.

Basically our national policy is hope and pray for a vaccine.

yep we went from 0-60 way to fast instead of opening up in phases.  If we had gone slowly and been patient we would be in a much better spot

[GooooMarquette]

Of course, but it seems shutting down the Phillies would be an extreme measure not being taken in any other business/industry, where the risk of infection would be far greater.
If, for example, some workers at my local Home Depot test positive, they're not quarantining the entire workforce for two weeks, much less everyone who shopped there.
The standard for quarantining someone who's been potentially exposed has always been close contact, defined by the CDC as "someone who was within 6 feet of an infected person for at least 15 minutes." When is an opposing player ever in "close contact" on a baseball field?

The Home Depot employees don't travel from city to city together to staff stores together all over the country. And FWIW, we have seen stores shut down entirely because employees tested positive. Just a small sampling:

https://www.pennlive.com/coronavirus/2020/05/coronavirus-cluster-wal-mart-store-closes-after-81-employees-test-positive-for-covid-19.html

https://komonews.com/news/coronavirus/starbucks-closes-store-near-seattle-art-musuem-due-to-positive-coronavirus-test

https://www.kpq.com/over-20-walmart-employees-test-positive/

https://www.abqjournal.com/1474906/las-cruces-walmart-closed-after-4-employees-got-covid.html

[Skatastrophy]

yep we went from 0-60 way to fast instead of opening up in phases.  If we had gone slowly and been patient we would be in a much better spot

If all states had actually shut down for 4-8 weeks, we would have through this thing by June. The economic impact of continuing to ignore the problem is growing quickly.

[pbiflyer]

Aren't The Marlins basically a minor league team anyway?

Why the teal?

I'm a Marlins fan and this was my first thought.

[Pakuni]

The Home Depot employees don't travel from city to city together to staff stores together all over the country.

I'm not sure what the relevance is here. Are Phillies traveling to Atlanta next week to be the Braves? Are you more likely to expose someone when traveling versus staying within your own city? Are you more susceptible to an out-of-towner with the virus than someone from your hometown?
Please explain.

https://www.pennlive.com/coronavirus/2020/05/coronavirus-cluster-wal-mart-store-closes-after-81-employees-test-positive-for-covid-19.html

https://komonews.com/news/coronavirus/starbucks-closes-store-near-seattle-art-musuem-due-to-positive-coronavirus-test

https://www.kpq.com/over-20-walmart-employees-test-positive/

https://www.abqjournal.com/1474906/las-cruces-walmart-closed-after-4-employees-got-covid.html

These aren't the greatest of analogies, and certainly aren't comparable to my Home Depot hypothetical or what you're suggesting should happen with the Phillies. Here's why:

1. The Worcester Wamart was closed for less than a week. No evidence I can find that everyone who was in the building was quarantined for two weeks.
2. The Seattle Starbucks was closed for three days for cleaning. Other than the employee who tested positive, the staff was not quarantined for two weeks. Neither were the patrons.
3. The Wenatchee Walmart was closed for less than two days and employees who didn't test positive weren't quarantined, and neither were the customers.
4. The Las Cruces Wal-Mart closed for less than a day. It's employees who didn't test positive were not quarantined for two weeks, nor were its customers.

Lastly, all of this was happening indoors, which we know by now is an important distinction when it comes to spreading the virus.
Note: I completely agree with the decision to postpone the Marlins and Phillies games, the latter seemingly just to make sure the clubhouse is thoroughly cleaned, etc., for the next team coming in. Those are completely reasonable precautions. Sitting the Phillies out for two weeks - regardless of how they test - because they shared an outdoor baseball stadium with some infected players on the other team seems, to me, an unnecessary move.

[GooooMarquette]

I'm not sure what the relevance is here. Are Phillies traveling to Atlanta next week to be the Braves? Are you more likely to expose someone when traveling versus staying within your own city? Are you more susceptible to an out-of-towner with the virus than someone from your hometown?
Please explain.

These aren't the greatest of analogies, and certainly aren't comparable to my Home Depot hypothetical or what you're suggesting should happen with the Phillies. Here's why:

1. The Worcester Wamart was closed for less than a week. No evidence I can find that everyone who was in the building was quarantined for two weeks.
2. The Seattle Starbucks was closed for three days for cleaning. Other than the employee who tested positive, the staff was not quarantined for two weeks. Neither were the patrons.
3. The Wenatchee Walmart was closed for less than two days and employees who didn't test positive weren't quarantined, and neither were the customers.
4. The Las Cruces Wal-Mart closed for less than a day. It's employees who didn't test positive were not quarantined for two weeks, nor were its customers.

Lastly, all of this was happening indoors, which we know by now is an important distinction when it comes to spreading the virus.

Major League Baseball is (pardon the pun) a whole different ballgame. You raised the Home Depot analogy - I didn't think it was a good one, but I played along and gave examples. Yes, the closures were shorter, but that's because local stores like that aren't as high stakes (and big money) as teams traveling city to city to play different groups of players...and encountering innumerable airport, airline, hotel and other personnel along the way.

Like it or not, MLB has the resources to respond better than your local Home Depot, players have the ability to demand that the league better protect them, and the league does not want the bad press of spreading the virus any worse than it has already spread across the country.

Bottom line: there is no good analogy to what MLB is trying. Local stores are different in terms of what they do, the bargaining power their employees have, and the accelerated speed of the (additional) nationwide spread that could be caused by a potentially infected team traveling around the country. Even other major professional sports leagues in the country aren't good analogies, because all the current leagues are being played inside bubbles.

The fact that the Yankees@Phillies tonight was postponed and MLB is having an emergency meeting today seems to indicate that the league recognizes this too....

[Pakuni]

And encountering innumerable airport, airline, hotel and other personnel along the way.

MLB teams don't fly commercial, and how are they any different than any other business person checking into a hotel (other than they don't actually have to check in/check out or deal with any hotel staff )?

Like it or not, MLB has the resources to respond better than your local Home Depot, players have the ability to demand that the league better protect them, and the league does not want the bad press of spreading the virus any worse than it has already spread across the country.

OK ... back to the original point. Why is shutting down the Phillies for two weeks regardless of how they test a "better" response? No medical/public health guidelines I'm aware of would suggest such a drastic move given the level of exposure here. Why do you disagree with the experts?
If your position is that two weeks of quarantine is necessary for anyone who has even the slightest risk of maybe, perhaps having been exposed, then fine. I think that's extreme. By that measure, most of us probably would have been quarantined several times by now.

The fact that the Yankees@Phillies tonight was postponed and MLB is having an emergency meeting today seems to indicate that the league recognizes this too....

What does the fact the Phillies aren't in quarantine indicate?

[GooooMarquette]

MLB teams don't fly commercial, and how are they any different than any other business person checking into a hotel (other than they don't actually have to check in/check out or deal with any hotel staff )?

OK ... back to the original point. Why is shutting down the Phillies for two weeks regardless of how they test a "better" response? No medical/public health guidelines I'm aware of would suggest such a drastic move given the level of exposure here. Why do you disagree with the experts?
If your position is that two weeks of quarantine is necessary for anyone who has even the slightest risk of maybe, perhaps having been exposed, then fine. I think that's extreme. By that measure, most of us probably would have been quarantined several times by now.

What does the fact the Phillies aren't in quarantine indicate?

I'm not interested in picking this apart piece by piece except to say that sports are a luxury, and the majority of players have the luxury of playing this season...or not. That puts them in a very different position than Home Depot emplyees, or business travelers or just about any other example you can think of.

IMHO the leagues that are playing in bubbles are doing the right thing.

[MUBurrow]

IMHO comparisons of typical places of employment just aren't that applicable to pro sports teams.  The manner in which teammates interact with each other, the amount of time they spend together, etc., makes stopping spread within teams damn near impossible. I would guess that home depot or sbux or any of the other comparisons we're using have largely called off big all-staff meetings.  Pro sports teams have at least 2  all-team meetings in the locker rooms each day, not to mention they are eating and showering together - the nature of a locker room is just much more conducive to spread than almost any other scenario. 

Each time you're close to another person is a rona lottery ticket, and pro athletes are holding more lottery tickets than just about any other profession, and they're going to have their numbers called more often.  Even if the comparisons are a matter of degree more than type, viral transmission is a matter of degree, too.

[jesmu84]

https://journal.medizzy.com/first-case-of-a-baby-infected-with-covid-19-in-the-womb/

This seems bad

[Jockey]

Reports are that the Marlins’ players made the decision to play, ignoring the league protocols.

If true, punishment is in order for team executives.

[The Lens]

Reports are that the Marlins’ players made the decision to play, ignoring the league protocols.

If true, punishment is in order for team executives.

If I'm reading correctly, there are no league protocols.  MLB has no guidelines about when to shut down.  This is exactly why each team is a carrying a 30 man taxi squad. The players voted to not cancel the game.