[JustAnotherFan]

You know, if we all drove 15 mph instead of 70 , we could cut way down on traffic deaths too.

So the answer is to drive as fast as we want?  An estimated 38,000 people die each year from auto accidents, and we enforce regulations on automakers that cost up to $10 million per life saved.

We have lost 8 times as many people from COVID-19, and no one is saying we ought to cancel sports forever.  It will be a mere 6 months until a vaccine is widely available.

BC

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If we are going to engage in hypotheticals, how many people saw college football happening and concluded "the pandemic must not be that bad, they're playing football".  How many people had their friends over to watch games and in so doing transmitted the virus?

There's no way of knowing, but the correct metric is not "how many football players got COVID".

BC

No hypothetical. We will have solid data, if it's released. The team had zero positive tests over the last several months. How many will they have over the next several months. Don't you think an important study?

My point is that football players aren’t the only people in this equation.  They aren’t the only people whose COVID rates have to be considered, and you can’t look at Stanford in a vacuum (since Stanford playing meant that the rest of the PAC-12 practiced and played too).  The New York Times had a piece on positive tests in collegiate athletics overall, and there were something like 6600 athletes with positive tests (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/11/sport...tball.html).  I can’t tell you how many it would have been had they not been playing, nor how many transmissions occurred among people watching the game together.  In some ways, it is immaterial.  With ICU’s filled to capacity in Southern California, it is passed the time where we can determine what is ok with surgical precision; blunt tools are overdue.

Lastly, Economics is all about trade-offs, and the effort that went into protecting the football team didn’t go into other things, like more frequent testing of long term care facility staff.  A full accounting of the cost of playing football has to take that into account.

BC

What about the other impact of strict lockdowns?  The vast mental health cost being one.  I just don’t think it’s as simple as “blunt tools are overdue”.  I heard someone on KCBS talking about the higher incidence of drug overdoses.  In SF there have been about 175 deaths from Covid. During the same period, according to this person (sorry I didn’t catch the name) over 600 overdose deaths.  I realize SF is not indicative of the state, much less the country, on this.  But the mental health strain has been significant.  And if spectator TV sports (as I believe) helps on that front, than that is important as well.

What is the baseline for overdose deaths during the same period year over year?

It would be interesting to know the impact of strict lockdowns. Something that hasn't been tried yet.

[JustAnotherFan]

You know, if we all drove 15 mph instead of 70 , we could cut way down on traffic deaths too.

So the answer is to drive as fast as we want?  An estimated 38,000 people die each year from auto accidents, and we enforce regulations on automakers that cost up to $10 million per life saved.

We have lost 8 times as many people from COVID-19, and no one is saying we ought to cancel sports forever.  It will be a mere 6 months until a vaccine is widely available.

BC

---

If we are going to engage in hypotheticals, how many people saw college football happening and concluded "the pandemic must not be that bad, they're playing football".  How many people had their friends over to watch games and in so doing transmitted the virus?

There's no way of knowing, but the correct metric is not "how many football players got COVID".

BC

No hypothetical. We will have solid data, if it's released. The team had zero positive tests over the last several months. How many will they have over the next several months. Don't you think an important study?

My point is that football players aren’t the only people in this equation.  They aren’t the only people whose COVID rates have to be considered, and you can’t look at Stanford in a vacuum (since Stanford playing meant that the rest of the PAC-12 practiced and played too).  The New York Times had a piece on positive tests in collegiate athletics overall, and there were something like 6600 athletes with positive tests (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/11/sport...tball.html).  I can’t tell you how many it would have been had they not been playing, nor how many transmissions occurred among people watching the game together.  In some ways, it is immaterial.  With ICU’s filled to capacity in Southern California, it is passed the time where we can determine what is ok with surgical precision; blunt tools are overdue.

Lastly, Economics is all about trade-offs, and the effort that went into protecting the football team didn’t go into other things, like more frequent testing of long term care facility staff.  A full accounting of the cost of playing football has to take that into account.

BC

What about the other impact of strict lockdowns?  The vast mental health cost being one.  I just don’t think it’s as simple as “blunt tools are overdue”.  I heard someone on KCBS talking about the higher incidence of drug overdoses.  In SF there have been about 175 deaths from Covid. During the same period, according to this person (sorry I didn’t catch the name) over 600 overdose deaths.  I realize SF is not indicative of the state, much less the country, on this.  But the mental health strain has been significant.  And if spectator TV sports (as I believe) helps on that front, than that is important as well.

What is the baseline for overdose deaths during the same period year over year?

It would be interesting to know the impact of strict lockdowns. Something that hasn't been tried yet.