[Mick]

BC:

While this is tragic, I’m unclear why it’s something that is important to monitor. First, we have no idea of the cause of death.  Second as football was cancelled at his school it has nothing to do with that.  Third, it’s unclear if he was on campus. This looks to me more like a “story” that got put out before any real information was known.

It may well be nothing, and if the cause of death is unrelated to COVID-19, then it will have been tragic, but not important.  But if he did, in fact, die of COVID-19, it might change the calculus somewhat for continuing to hold athletic events.  One of the reasons that athletics have resumed is the presumption that even if athletes get COVID-19, they are very unlikely to die from it.  That's probably true even if this death winds up being related to COVID-19, but it will dispel the myth of invincibility and it will remind us all that if we place athletes at risk of transmission from COVID-19 by participation in events that may result in transmission, then we are going to be placing a small fraction of them at risk of death.  That risk may be small enough that it is still worth carrying on... but it is not zero.

BC

I wonder where COVID will rank as a cause of death among college students?  Alcohol, injuries, suicide, cancer.  I seem to recall that there were 1,800 alcohol related deaths and about 1,000 suicides annually.  large numbers for sure, but there are 18 million college students at any one time.

[Mick]

BC:

While this is tragic, I’m unclear why it’s something that is important to monitor. First, we have no idea of the cause of death.  Second as football was cancelled at his school it has nothing to do with that.  Third, it’s unclear if he was on campus. This looks to me more like a “story” that got put out before any real information was known.

It may well be nothing, and if the cause of death is unrelated to COVID-19, then it will have been tragic, but not important.  But if he did, in fact, die of COVID-19, it might change the calculus somewhat for continuing to hold athletic events.  One of the reasons that athletics have resumed is the presumption that even if athletes get COVID-19, they are very unlikely to die from it.  That's probably true even if this death winds up being related to COVID-19, but it will dispel the myth of invincibility and it will remind us all that if we place athletes at risk of transmission from COVID-19 by participation in events that may result in transmission, then we are going to be placing a small fraction of them at risk of death.  That risk may be small enough that it is still worth carrying on... but it is not zero.

BC

I wonder where COVID will rank as a cause of death among college students?  Alcohol, injuries, suicide, cancer.  I seem to recall that there were 1,800 alcohol related deaths and about 1,000 suicides annually.  large numbers for sure, but there are 18 million college students at any one time.