Will the Coming Season be Different Because of COVID-19?

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Originally Posted by Mojouw

Technically, the ability to Lysol applied directly to the genitals has never been subjected to a Peer Reviewed double-blind study; so we really can't say for sure that it won't work!

Me, personally, I am just going to go old school on it and drink a staggering and irresponsible amount of Gin and Tonics. Time tested manner (excuse?) of getting quinine into the system. I anticipate being invincible to both malaria and COVID-19 by the end of June. I am starting to have an odd desire to colonize and exploit resources in India...weird. Odd side effect.

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Now we are getting somewhere!! I want to see somebody get ethics approval for a randomized control trial of Lysol on the genitals! Likely going to be published from Univ of Tehran.

G&T baby!! Gordons? Bombay Sapphire? Aviation? Hendricks? Tanqueray? What about a good dirty gin martini?

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Originally Posted by Mojouw

I don't know. I have just reached a point that because far too many people are incapable of reasoning and/or distinguishing utter bullshit when they see it; most of the internet is full of nonsense. For instance, the entire GoodRX post is basically a pharmacist gently telling worried folks that are not able to understand things for themselves that whatever they heard about this medicine is untested, untried, mostly unscientific crap. So we get to this point where everyone is trying to be "fair and balanced" and we get totally nonequivalent things being elevated to the same platform. Then, frankly, idiots use that to determine these two things are of equal value. It is a self-reinforcing cycle of stupidity and bullshit.

As to the usefulness of this thing; I guess we can go with "don't know enough yet" but there are people (with the same level of credibility as those making claims for Hydroxychloroquine) that crystals cure diseases and common household chemicals prevent AIDs. Technically, the ability to Lysol applied directly to the genitals has never been subjected to a Peer Reviewed double-blind study; so we really can't say for sure that it won't work!

Me, personally, I am just going to go old school on it and drink a staggering and irresponsible amount of Gin and Tonics. Time tested manner (excuse?) of getting quinine into the system. I anticipate being invincible to both malaria and COVID-19 by the end of June. I am starting to have an odd desire to colonize and exploit resources in India...weird. Odd side effect.

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I hear what you're saying. The whole reason I put up the GoodRX link was precisely to put something up that tells you generally what is going on, but doesn't overwhelm with the minutia that so many other more detailed, and "prerequisite knowledge required" medical and scientific findings come with. Just an easy to understand, need-to-know cheat sheet.

I totally get the position that someone will believe it when they see it. I think that is the rational way to look at it. I hope that there is something there to help people. It will take a long study with a large number of patients treated that have substantial improvement numbers to prove that there are clear benefits to taking HCQ in any form or with any combination of drugs.

I'm about ready for an irresponsible amount of pretty much any alcohol at this point.....hold the tonic.

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Originally Posted by El-Gonzo Jackson

Now we are getting somewhere!! I want to see somebody get ethics approval for a randomized control trial of Lysol on the genitals! Likely going to be published from Univ of Tehran.

G&T baby!! Gordons? Bombay Sapphire? Aviation? Hendricks? Tanqueray? What about a good dirty gin martini?

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Bombay (honestly not to picky on my gin!) and the quinine that is the tonic water is the important part. So I think a dirty gin martini just gets you fancy drunk...but has no "medical" benefit!

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Originally Posted by pczach

I hear what you're saying. The whole reason I put up the GoodRX link was precisely to put something up that tells you generally what is going on, but doesn't overwhelm with the minutia that so many other more detailed, and "prerequisite knowledge required" medical and scientific findings come with. Just an easy to understand, need-to-know cheat sheet.

I totally get the position that someone will believe it when they see it. I think that is the rational way to look at it. I hope that there is something there to help people. It will take a long study with a large number of patients treated that have substantial improvement numbers to prove that there are clear benefits to taking HCQ in any form or with any combination of drugs.

I'm about ready for an irresponsible amount of pretty much any alcohol at this point.....hold the tonic.

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I think it is quickly approaching happy hour...it is only Tuesday and this work week can already go to hell. Or maybe it is that it has already gone...?

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Originally Posted by Mojouw

Bombay (honestly not to picky on my gin!) and the quinine that is the tonic water is the important part. So I think a dirty gin martini just gets you fancy drunk...but has no "medical" benefit!

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Just spray some Lysol on it!

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Originally Posted by El-Gonzo Jackson

There you go quoting Doctors from Harvard Med and Mass General that are "creating a science-based awareness" of this topic. Next you are going to try and post something from The Mayo Clinc or Johns Hopkins Medical Centre, or the Cleveland Clinic, or UCLA School of Medicine that is published in the JAMA (Journal of American Medical Assoc.) that is based on clinical evidence of a level 1 trial. Why bother to listen to credible sources of information when it comes to your health? :sarcasm2:

Let the folks that want to listen to Dr. Phil and Dr. Drew go ahead. The principal of natural selection points to society being better off in the long run.

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I momentarily lost my mind. Sorry.

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Originally Posted by Mojouw

Bombay (honestly not to picky on my gin!) and the quinine that is the tonic water is the important part. So I think a dirty gin martini just gets you fancy drunk...but has no "medical" benefit!

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I think it is quickly approaching happy hour...it is only Tuesday and this work week can already go to hell. Or maybe it is that it has already gone...?

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I like Bombay as well. Lets also not downplay the value of the oils in a couple olives. Happy cinco de mayo! Its tequila time.

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Originally Posted by pczach

Just spray some Lysol on it!

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Pine scented would add a unique flavor profile to that drink. :scratchchin:

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Originally Posted by El-Gonzo Jackson

I like Bombay as well. Lets also not downplay the value of the oils in a couple olives. Happy cinco de mayo! Its tequila time.

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Make mine a nice smoky Mezcal.

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Originally Posted by silver & black

Make mine a nice smoky Mezcal.

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Let me know a couple decent brands if you don't mind. I haven't had Mezcal in over 20 years and it wasn't good at the time. I like some good tequila, but don't even know what a good mezcal is.

:drink:

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Originally Posted by El-Gonzo Jackson

Let me know a couple decent brands if you don't mind. I haven't had Mezcal in over 20 years and it wasn't good at the time. I like some good tequila, but don't even know what a good mezcal is.

:drink:

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Check out Del Maguey single village Mezcal. You will probably have to mail order. I usually stick with the Mezcal Vida and the Crema De.... because the rest way over my budget...lol.

Wait. Not everyone is just drinking rot gut whiskey they made in a rusty lead lined still in the woods behind their house?

Crap! I thought that was what we were supposed to do in this time of crisis.

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Originally Posted by Mojouw

Wait. Not everyone is just drinking rot gut whiskey they made in a rusty lead lined still in the woods behind their house?

Crap! I thought that was what we were supposed to do in this time of crisis.

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Nah, I am pretty well stocked up. Gin, Whisky(Irish, Scotch, Canadian) Bourbon, Vodka, Rum, Tequila. Even an apple brandy or 2. I'm kind of a prepper that way. :wink02:

I wonder if there will be some kind of mouthgard protocol established?

Lets face it, if one player is an asymptomatic carrier and takes out his mouthgard with his hands, then saliva is on his hands and every football he touches becomes infected, every player he tackles, blocks, pushes off of to get separation on a route, etc becomes infected and over the course of 4 quarters...most have virus sonewhere on them.

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Originally Posted by El-Gonzo Jackson

I wonder if there will be some kind of mouthgard protocol established?

Lets face it, if one player is an asymptomatic carrier and takes out his mouthgard with his hands, then saliva is on his hands and every football he touches becomes infected, every player he tackles, blocks, pushes off of to get separation on a route, etc becomes infected and over the course of 4 quarters...most have virus sonewhere on them.

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How to enforce that I wonder? The answer might be near constant testing. But imagine what it would look like for the NFL and the NBA to use up thousands and thousands of tests while the rest of the country struggles to get enough testing online to re-open the basic elements of economic life? Also where would the testing stop - players? Their families? Stadium workers? Food vendors? Parking lot attendants?

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Originally Posted by Mojouw

How to enforce that I wonder? The answer might be near constant testing. But imagine what it would look like for the NFL and the NBA to use up thousands and thousands of tests while the rest of the country struggles to get enough testing online to re-open the basic elements of economic life? Also where would the testing stop - players? Their families? Stadium workers? Food vendors? Parking lot attendants?

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You think the stadiums will open to the public and not just the teams? I doubt it.

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Originally Posted by tom444

You think the stadiums will open to the public and not just the teams? I doubt it.

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No idea. But even if it is just the teams; there will still be a bunch of support personnel involved in running the practice and game facilities. Someone will be watching the players and coaches cars. Someone will be cooking them food during the practice week. Someone will be cleaning and doing routine maintenance. If a league says we are going to run and we are going to test everyone who could bring the virus to our players -- then you are testing a heck of a lot of people several times a month.

I strongly question how long the rest of keep getting told that we need more testing and not having it available while a sports league is just sucking up incredible numbers of testing resources.

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Originally Posted by Mojouw

No idea. But even if it is just the teams; there will still be a bunch of support personnel involved in running the practice and game facilities. Someone will be watching the players and coaches cars. Someone will be cooking them food during the practice week. Someone will be cleaning and doing routine maintenance. If a league says we are going to run and we are going to test everyone who could bring the virus to our players -- then you are testing a heck of a lot of people several times a month.

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True enough. My point is that if you're still in a position where you're worried about transferring a players siliva during a game there is no way you're ready to open the stadium up to the public.

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Originally Posted by tom444

True enough. My point is that if you're still in a position where you're worried about transferring a players siliva during a game there is no way you're ready to open the stadium up to the public.

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I agree, I think if there is football in 4 months from now, it will not have fans in the stands. COVID19 has been around for approx. 6 months, its not just going to stop and immunity be developed in the next 4 months.

Mmm, spit-swapping.

Who says the NFL isn’t progressive.

I hate to say it, but if you are actually going to be playing football games, you have to assume EVERY player is eventually going to get the disease. The number of players in the league makes it statistically very unlikely that zero players have it at any given time. As in, if it affected 0.5% of the population, which test results suggest is a very conservative estimate, then that gives you a 99.979% chance that there is at least one infected player.

And let's not kid ourselves, there are no precautions you can take during the actual playing of a football game that are going to stop it from spreading from one player to another. People are grabbing each other, laying on top of each other in big piles, sweating, spitting, breathing hard the whole time. You are not going to preemptively catch every case of it in the league before it spreads, either, so you can forget about that.

The good news is, for people in the 20-35 age range, the mortality rate is almost nil. (Like, 1-2 in 10,000 for that group up to age 44.) That still gives you a 15% chance someone would die if everyone got infected. But, since well over 90% of those are people with other serious health problems, that drops it to more like 1% (that anyone in the whole league would die) if you remove those at-risk players. Probably lower still, considering that most of these players are in peak physical condition, not just average.

So basically, anyone with asthma, anyone with diabetes, anyone with a heart condition doesn't play, doesn't practice, doesn't come anywhere near the team. Then anyone who doesn't feel comfortable playing has a choice not to. Then you go ahead and take that sub-1% chance and hope it works out.

Of course, there is no way in hell anyone is going to sign off on that. But the truth of it is, that is still what they are going to be doing anyway if they hold a season, no matter what kinds of protocols and testing and who knows what else are in place. That is all just decoration to make it seem like there is anything they can do about it.

In reality, if they do go forward, what will inevitably happen is one player tests positive the first week, and then all that team's games will get postponed and no one will know what to do schedule-wise, and there will be talk of a shortened season with COVID bye weeks ... then if they make it to Week 2, several other players will test positive - and if they haven't suspended the whole season indefinitely yet, then Lockdown II will be kicking in across roughly California, New York, Washington (state/DC), Illinois, Michigan, and possibly several other states, and then they will have no choice.

Since the question will likely come up, if I were doing it personally, yes, I would just go ahead with the plan and take the 1% risk, and everyone would have their own choice about whether or not to participate. Open up the stadium, ban anyone over 50 from attending, and they all likewise have a choice. Snowball's chance in hell of that, though, people think it's the plague by now.

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Originally Posted by steelreserve

I hate to say it, but if you are actually going to be playing football games, you have to assume EVERY player is eventually going to get the disease. The number of players in the league makes it statistically very unlikely that zero players have it at any given time. As in, if it affected 0.5% of the population, which test results suggest is a very conservative estimate, then that gives you a 99.979% chance that there is at least one infected player.

And let's not kid ourselves, there are no precautions you can take during the actual playing of a football game that are going to stop it from spreading from one player to another. People are grabbing each other, laying on top of each other in big piles, sweating, spitting, breathing hard the whole time. You are not going to preemptively catch every case of it in the league before it spreads, either, so you can forget about that.

The good news is, for people in the 20-35 age range, the mortality rate is almost nil. (Like, 1-2 in 10,000 for that group up to age 44.) That still gives you a 15% chance someone would die if everyone got infected. But, since well over 90% of those are people with other serious health problems, that drops it to more like 1% (that anyone in the whole league would die) if you remove those at-risk players. Probably lower still, considering that most of these players are in peak physical condition, not just average.

So basically, anyone with asthma, anyone with diabetes, anyone with a heart condition doesn't play, doesn't practice, doesn't come anywhere near the team. Then anyone who doesn't feel comfortable playing has a choice not to. Then you go ahead and take that sub-1% chance and hope it works out.

Of course, there is no way in hell anyone is going to sign off on that. But the truth of it is, that is still what they are going to be doing anyway if they hold a season, no matter what kinds of protocols and testing and who knows what else are in place. That is all just decoration to make it seem like there is anything they can do about it.

In reality, if they do go forward, what will inevitably happen is one player tests positive the first week, and then all that team's games will get postponed and no one will know what to do schedule-wise, and there will be talk of a shortened season with COVID bye weeks ... then if they make it to Week 2, several other players will test positive - and if they haven't suspended the whole season indefinitely yet, then Lockdown II will be kicking in across roughly California, New York, Washington (state/DC), Illinois, Michigan, and possibly several other states, and then they will have no choice.

Since the question will likely come up, if I were doing it personally, yes, I would just go ahead with the plan and take the 1% risk, and everyone would have their own choice about whether or not to participate. Open up the stadium, ban anyone over 50 from attending, and they all likewise have a choice. Snowball's chance in hell of that, though, people think it's the plague by now.

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I think another "interesting" component is say the season got cancelled or going off of some of what you laid out; ended after a few weeks - Do the players get a full year of pay and/or a counted contract year towards their next FA cycle or being a "vested veteran"? If yes, then they have no incentive to play. If no, you might get enough guys who want/need the game checks and service time to play.

Follow the money....this is no different

Healthy couples get infected by the same strain and each go through different symptoms and reactions to it. You have one barely run a fever while the other is bed ridden for a week. Why? To say that less than 1% of NFL players would be at severe risk is just not going by the science. Consider this virus in the same way as calories. 100 calories is 100 calories by the math. But in biology different people's chemistry and genetics makes those 100 calories as different as night and day possibly.

The money will most likely win out. Hopefully we have seen the worst of this and it's going to phase itself out as quickly as it spread.

Until there is a vaccine, which doctors say could be the fall, this isn’t going to lose any steam unless every single thing is shut down. There’s still people planning Memorial Day vacations, still people running around without gloves and masks in groups. Still idiots throwing birthday parties. It’s not going to stop until there is a vaccine because people can’t follow simple rules that are temporarily in place in hopes that in the future, things can be normal. People are just overly selfish.

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Originally Posted by Born2Steel

Healthy couples get infected by the same strain and each go through different symptoms and reactions to it. You have one barely run a fever while the other is bed ridden for a week. Why? To say that less than 1% of NFL players would be at severe risk is just not going by the science. Consider this virus in the same way as calories. 100 calories is 100 calories by the math. But in biology different people's chemistry and genetics makes those 100 calories as different as night and day possibly.

The money will most likely win out. Hopefully we have seen the worst of this and it's going to phase itself out as quickly as it spread.

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I like the analogy. This isn't going to phase itself out. Approx 1.1million people have to die in the USA before herd immunity to happen.

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Originally Posted by 86WARD

Until there is a vaccine, which doctors say could be the fall, this isn’t going to lose any steam unless every single thing is shut down. There’s still people planning Memorial Day vacations, still people running around without gloves and masks in groups. Still idiots throwing birthday parties. It’s not going to stop until there is a vaccine because people can’t follow simple rules that are temporarily in place in hopes that in the future, things can be normal. People are just overly selfish.

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I personally don't like the word selfish, as it seems to accuse people of something. I prefer to think of it as choosing to avoid helping others....which I guess is just a less threatening way of saying the same thing?

Call me selfish if you want, I'm not wearing a mask that does nothing to prevent a damn thing. Especially when people keep touching the front of their mask with dirty hands and then put the mask right back on their faces. Stupid.


By the way, I have had formal training in HAZMAT, LEAD ABATEMENT and all kinds of other crap from back when I was a young buck painter. Trust me, those masks are not stopping anything from getting in or out unless you have a seal and a vent. I also have had contamination training from when I was doing survey work at a nuclear power plant.


Edit: If I sound pissy, its because I am. I am tired of being stuck in the damn house. Been here since freaking January waiting on 2 surgeries. One for my kidney and one for a hernia right on top of said kidney. Doctor won't let me out of the fucking house, hospitals are just finally letting surgeries commence again. Needless to say, I am tired of being cooped up.

The purpose of a cloth mask is not to prevent things from getting in to the wearer. That can not be guaranteed because of the lack of a seal and a vent; just as has been mentioned. It is to prevent stuff from getting out from the wearer to the world around us. Recent studies have demonstrated that 90+% of airborne droplets from acts like speech and coughing are prevented from traveling and landing on public surfaces by wearing a cloth mask, even a damp one.

I hate wearing them. Totally uncomfortable. It is the same reason that I tend to not work with gloves, eye protection, or a respirator/dust filter mask whenever I can get away with it my job or around the house. But if I wear a cloth mask for the like the 30 minutes a week I am in the grocery store or something and I can help keep someone else from getting sick -- no skin off my ass.

None of the measures meant to protect yourself and others is foolproof.
But to say they don’t have any effect on reducing your chances of being infected is delusional.
It comes down to discipline.
I don’t mind the masks, the gloves, the disinfectants, the whatever...if it reduces my chance of contracting a virus that could kill me.
When this whole business started, going to the store felt like preparing for battle.
But my wife and I have stuck with it, and you know what, we’ve gotten used to it.

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Originally Posted by 43Hitman

Call me selfish if you want, I'm not wearing a mask that does nothing to prevent a damn thing. Especially when people keep touching the front of their mask with dirty hands and then put the mask right back on their faces. Stupid.


By the way, I have had formal training in HAZMAT, LEAD ABATEMENT and all kinds of other crap from back when I was a young buck painter. Trust me, those masks are not stopping anything from getting in or out unless you have a seal and a vent. I also have had contamination training from when I was doing survey work at a nuclear power plant.


Edit: If I sound pissy, its because I am. I am tired of being stuck in the damn house. Been here since freaking January waiting on 2 surgeries. One for my kidney and one for a hernia right on top of said kidney. Doctor won't let me out of the fucking house, hospitals are just finally letting surgeries commence again. Needless to say, I am tired of being cooped up.

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I hear ya. I work around the medical industry and before the real panic set in, the nurses in hospitals were finding people that don't know how to put on a mask, nor understand sterile technique were touching their face and mask all the time, defeating the purpose.

I don't wear a mask, but I also don't cough on people, nor tough things and then touch eyes, nose, mouth right after which could result in contamination.

Good luck with the surgery and I hope you get it soon. Hopefully you haven't had a nephrostomy drain in all this time as that can likely add to your pissy mood.

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Originally Posted by El-Gonzo Jackson

I hear ya. I work around the medical industry and before the real panic set in, the nurses in hospitals were finding people that don't know how to put on a mask, nor understand sterile technique were touching their face and mask all the time, defeating the purpose.

I don't wear a mask, but I also don't cough on people, nor tough things and then touch eyes, nose, mouth right after which could result in contamination.

Good luck with the surgery and I hope you get it soon. Hopefully you haven't had a nephrostomy drain in all this time as that can likely add to your pissy mood.

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I've had a nephrostomy tube and bag since mid Janurary.

Edit: Thanks for the well wishes. I was doing great mood wise until last week sometime. I'm just at my wits end with this whole thing to be completely honest.

And to my fellow Steelers Brethren, I apologize for being an ass.

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Originally Posted by Mojouw

I think another "interesting" component is say the season got cancelled or going off of some of what you laid out; ended after a few weeks - Do the players get a full year of pay and/or a counted contract year towards their next FA cycle or being a "vested veteran"? If yes, then they have no incentive to play. If no, you might get enough guys who want/need the game checks and service time to play.

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Of course the big one is going to be whether players get paid their full salaries, and from what I can understand, there is nothing in the CBA that says one way or the other, just that in the event of a significant part of the season being cancelled, the players and owners have to negotiate in good faith on what the next year's salary cap will be (in other words, it can't be zero if there's zero revenue). But that particular question is unaddressed, and will probably be argued at length.

Interestingly, that probably changes the dynamic of whether there will be a season quite a bit. If it was simply "You get paid according to the number of games played," then I actually think a lot - maybe not all, but say half or more - of the players would decide the reward was worth the risk. (After all, playing tackle football under any circumstances is pretty risky for your long-term health.) But if they can wait for the lawyers to duke it out and likely still get all or part of their salary in a negotiated settlement, that's going to swing the other way. That one is going to go badly for the owners; just bring up the emotional appeal of some poor stooge who loves his family being forced toward certain death to put food on the table for his 3-year-old son, and they've lost the PR war. Play the class warfare and race cards liberally as needed. I would be surprised if they get on the field.

As for the rest (years of service, etc.), I imagine it will be pretty easy for the owners to cave on most of that, probably in exchange for part of the salary demands. Maybe the league-minimum guys keep their full salary, and the rest get league minimum with the difference added on to the back end of their contracts as guaranteed money? (I don't think they would ever agree to just giving back their money outright, nor should they.)

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Originally Posted by El-Gonzo Jackson

I like the analogy. This isn't going to phase itself out. Approx 1.1million people have to die in the USA before herd immunity to happen.

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Where on Earth do you get that idea? The way the blind testing results have been unfolding, every last person in the country could become infected, and far fewer than that would die.

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Originally Posted by El-Gonzo Jackson

I personally don't like the word selfish, as it seems to accuse people of something. I prefer to think of it as choosing to avoid helping others....which I guess is just a less threatening way of saying the same thing?

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What is concerning is that rather than being told that we should avoid imposing unreasonable risk or hardship on others, we are being ordered to eradicate all possible risk to others, at great cost to ourselves.

A more inflammatory - but pretty accurate in my mind - way of putting it is, "We are being conditioned to think that wanting individual freedom, thinking for ourselves, and making a living are selfish."

Again, the quarantine was never intended to eradicate the disease, or even reduce the number of total infections. It's achieved its purpose (if that purpose was even necessary to begin with) and then gone on for quadruple the stated amount of time ... because reasons, I guess.

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Originally Posted by Mojouw

The purpose of a cloth mask is not to prevent things from getting in to the wearer. That can not be guaranteed because of the lack of a seal and a vent; just as has been mentioned. It is to prevent stuff from getting out from the wearer to the world around us. Recent studies have demonstrated that 90+% of airborne droplets from acts like speech and coughing are prevented from traveling and landing on public surfaces by wearing a cloth mask, even a damp one.

I hate wearing them. Totally uncomfortable. It is the same reason that I tend to not work with gloves, eye protection, or a respirator/dust filter mask whenever I can get away with it my job or around the house. But if I wear a cloth mask for the like the 30 minutes a week I am in the grocery store or something and I can help keep someone else from getting sick -- no skin off my ass.

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This is exactly the reason why people wear them in Asian countries - to protect others when you are sick. Not to protect yourself (they do little good at that). You are going to breathe in what you are going to breathe in regardless, but if what you exhale does not go straight out all over the room, you don't get as many germs everywhere.

This is one practice that I actually think makes sense if you are indoors in a high-traffic area, or outdoors in a crowd, but when you see people just out for a walk wearing gloves and masks, you kind of shake your head. And in any event, while it's not a bad idea, it also shouldn't be a requirement except in very narrow cases.