Will teams play in empty stadiums by design? Will there be a season? Will the draft be closed to the public? Will this effect contracts? Suggestions?
Will teams play in empty stadiums by design? Will there be a season? Will the draft be closed to the public? Will this effect contracts? Suggestions?
Last edited by tom444; 03-08-2020 at 08:45 AM.
Me too man. Not to get to political but I find it very concerning that most of our medicines/antibiotics are produced and shipped in from China. We've allowed this to happen to ourselves, now with no shipping we have no way of getting our meds and no way to produce them here quickly as our manufacturing got moved to other countries. This could turn pretty bad very quickly if they don't get it under control soon.
At one point in time not too long ago we had this thing called World War 2. Overnight US factories started cranking out tanks, planes and naval ships. We built the Atomic bomb from theory.
I'd have to say that if push came to shove we COULD convert (or build) factories to do these things. It's only been in the more recent generations that we have been used to having anything we need with a push of a button.
DEEP BREATHS (as long as your 6 foot from people), we'll be fine.
This is one of the most irresponsible media driven panics in some time. Wash your hands.
Reminds me of when satanic cults were supposed to be carving a bloody swathe through small towns.
I'm not sure I'd go that far.
No fans at Series A matches, Italy sporting events until April 3 due to coronavirus.
All sporting events in Italy -- including Serie A football matches -- will take place without fans present for at least the next month due to the coronavirus outbreak in the country, the Italian government announced Wednesday.
https://www.espn.com/soccer/italian-...to-coronavirus
It absolutely is a media driven panic. People are hoarding masks that are totally ineffective in stopping anything virus related. There are shortages of bottled water. During the height of the outbreak in Wuhan, the water supply was never infected or disrupted. Hand sanitizer, which is often extremely ineffective against viruses is being bought out of stores. There are media predictions of millions of deaths. This is just all irresponsible and ridiculous.
The data collected so far indicates that the mortality rate is far far far lower than originally estimated. If you look at the Diamond Princess cruise ship as a controlled case study (morbid, but true), you can see that the mortality rate on this virus is far lower - under 1% than is and has been reported in most major media outlets.
Should we all attempt to avoid large group gatherings until we understand the full nature of this particular virus? Sure, can't hurt. Will there be major disruptions to the economy and individual lives? Almost certainly. But this is not the first 15 minutes of some apocalyptic zombie movie like many seem to think it is or will become. This is not the end times. It is simply a previously unseen version of type of virus that we are very familiar with and while no one is entirely sure of how this will play out, it is not uncharted territory here. SARS was the exact same type of virus and spread in a similar manner; yet people did not freak out to this degree. I think that "viral" media bits are being spread about this viruses and people are losing their minds.
That's all I'm talking about. And those things could seriously effect the coming season.
BTW, if the weather forecaster on any channel here in New England predicts more than 8 inches of snow the local Super Markets run out of milk and bread in a matter of hours. Is that media driven, or is it the way people are?
Well, people are idiots. Especially in large numbers. So there is that. But the media doesn't help. My local news is breathless reporting updates every few hours. We don't report constantly on the flu. I mean people are all over the internet gargling with bleach and hoarding food in bunkers over this. So sure, people are dumb and panicky creatures but the "Outbreak 2020: Will Your Entire Family Die?" storylines coming out of "news" organizations and then shared at light speed is certainly not helping.
I figure I have downplayed this repeatedly to friends and family members. This almost certainly guarantees that I get it. I guess I will let you all know how it turns out.
Here is some context that is missing from almost all typical coronavirus reports: (https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/heal...019-vs-the-flu)
COVID-19: Approximately 107,644 cases worldwide; 437 cases in the U.S. as of Mar. 8, 2020.
Flu: Estimated 1 billion cases worldwide; 9.3 million to 45 million cases in the U.S. per year.
Was it CNN or MSNBC that drove Xi Jinping to panic by quarantining 50 million people?
Or did Fox News cause Italy to flip out and place a quarter of the population on lockdown this weekend?
Governments taking those kind of economic hits would seem to indicate they are taking this to be more serious than the annual flu season, presumably because there is no vaccine and some of the usual barriers to containment are not available
I dont know. Certainly world perception was a major component of the decision making process.
Quarantine doesnt always mean panic.
But people are taking about power and water turning off. Food supplies running out. Ive seen people claim 1 in 5 of us are as good as dead.
Lots of people are going to get sick. Older people with compromised immune systems will die. Children and healthy adults are going to miss about 14 days of school or work.
But people are talking about this like we all should rewatch The Walking Dead like its an instructional manual.
"You've heard people brag about 'being in the zone'. They don't know what the Hell being in the zone is about. I played in the NFL for 15 years and I was only in the zone that one time." - "Mean" Joe Greene on the 1974 playoff victory over Oakland
Wash hands, touch you face as little as possible, and for shit sake, stay away from social media.
Well, here's an example of how stupid the reactions to this virus are going.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ammun...133400231.html
Now, I'm a pretty good shot, but I don't think I'm good enough to draw and shoot on target to get that virus before I inhale it!
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/th...and-2020-03-06
A mix of legacy drugmakers and small startups have stepped forward with plans to develop vaccines or treatments that target the infection caused by the novel coronavirus.
COVID-19, which was first detected in December in Wuhan, China, has sickened more than 100,000 people worldwide and killed at least 3,400. There are no Food and Drug Administration-approved vaccines or therapies for the disease.
Read more of MarketWatch’s coverage of COVID-19.
In the U.S., the companies that are initiating development have received funding from two organizations: the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), which is a division of the Department of Health and Human Services, and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a division of the National Institutes of Health. Some companies have received funding from Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), a global organization based in Oslo. Other companies are funding trials by themselves or through partnerships with other life sciences companies.
Here are some of the companies developing treatments or vaccines in the U.S. for COVID-19:
Company: Gilead Sciences Inc. GILD, -5.585%
Type: Treatment
Stage: Phase 3 clinical trials
Name: remdesivir
Background: Gilead is a longtime drug maker that is best known for developing the first major cure for hepatitis-C in Sovaldi, a therapy that changed the standard of care for that disease but also kicked off the national debate about drug pricing. The company has experience developing and marketing HIV drugs, including Truvada for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), its preventive HIV medicine. Along with U.S. trials, Gilead is conducting a randomized, controlled clinical trial in Wuhan, testing remdesivir as a treatment for mild to moderate forms of pneumonia in people with the virus. The trial was given the go-ahead by China’s Food and Drug Administration in February.
Clinical trials:
1. On Feb. 21, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases started enrolling patients in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase 3 trial evaluating 394 hospitalized patients with COVID-19 at up to 50 sites worldwide. The trial is expected to conclude April 1, 2023. Sites include the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., (not recruiting), the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha (recruiting), the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston (not recruiting), and Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane (recruiting).
2. On March 3, Gilead said a randomized, open-label Phase 3 trial will evaluate remdesivir in 600 patients with moderate COVID-19. The trial is expected to start enrolling patients in March, with results to come in May.
3. On March 3, Gilead said a randomized, open-label Phase 3 trial will evaluate remdesivir in 400 patients with severe COVID-19. The trial is expected to start enrolling patients in March, with results in May.
Year-to-date stock performance: Shares of Gilead are up 17.6%.
Company: GlaxoSmithKline GSK, -1.970%
Type: Pandemic adjuvant platform for vaccines
Name: AS03 Adjuvant System
Background: GSK is another leading vaccine maker, having brought to market vaccines for human papillomavirus (HPV) and the seasonal flu, among others. On Feb. 3, it said the CEPI-funded University of Queensland will have access to the British drugmaker’s vaccine adjuvant platform technology, which is believed to both strengthen the response of a vaccine and limit the amount of vaccine needed per dose. On Feb. 24, GSK said that Clover Biopharmaceuticals Inc., a Chinese biotechnology company, is also using adjuvant technology in combination with its vaccine candidate, COVID-19 S-Trimer, in preclinical studies. Dr. Thomas Breuer, chief medical officer for GSK Vaccines, is leading work on vaccines and the adjuvant platform.
Year-to-date stock performance: Shares of GSK have tumbled 12.8%.
Company: Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc. INO, -21.576%
Type: DNA-based vaccine
Stage: Preclinical
Name: INO-4800
Background: Another CEPI grantee, Inovio has said it already began preclinical testing and small-scale manufacturing.
Timeline: Inovio develops immunotherapies and vaccines but hasn’t yet had a product approved for treatment. For INO-4800, preclinical testing was performed between Jan. 23 and Feb. 29. The company plans to begin clinical trials in the U.S. with 30 participants in April. It also plans to launch human trials in China and South Korea that same month, and that it has a total of 3,000 doses prepared for the trials in the three countries. Inovio said it expects to have the first results from the trial in the fall and to have 1 million does of the vaccine ready for additional clinical trials or emergency use by the end of the year.
Year-to-date stock performance: Shares of Inovio have soared 278.2%.
Company: Johnson & Johnson JNJ, -2.570%
Type: Vaccine
Name: TBD (“We are still in the process of identifying a vaccine candidate, so no there is no name at this time,” a spokesman said March 4.)
Background: On Feb. 11, J&J said it is working with BARDA to test its vaccine candidate, with both organizations providing funding for research and development and the public-health organization funding the Phase 1 trials. Similar to GSK, J&J’s AdVac and PER. C6 technologies are used to improve the development process for a vaccine and were also used to develop J&J’s experimental Ebola vaccine. “We are also in discussions with other partners, that if we have a vaccine candidate with potential, we aim to make it accessible to China and other parts of the world,” Dr. Paul Stoffels, J&J’s chief scientific officer, said in a statement. J&J also said Feb. 18 that it is partnering with BARDA on a project that aims to screen existing antiviral medications, including experimental or approved therapies, that may be effective against COVID-19.
Timeline: The company aims to start a Phase 1 clinical trial by the end of 2020, “compared to the typical five to seven years it takes for this milestone in vaccine development,” Stoffels said on Dr. Paul Stoffels, J&J’s chief scientific officer and leader of J&J’s global COVID-19 response, said March 2.
Year-to-date stock performance: Shares of J&J are down 4.8%.
Company: Moderna Inc. MRNA, -10.081%
Type: RNA-based vaccine candidate
Stage: Preclinical
Name: mRNA-1273
Background: On Jan. 23, Moderna received funding from CEPI to develop an mRNA vaccine against COVID-19. On Feb. 24, it said it had shipped the first batch of mRNA-1273 to the NIAID for a Phase 1 clinical trial in the U.S.
Clinical trials: On Feb. 21, the NIAID said it would begin enrolling 45 healthy adult patients in an open-label Phase I clinical trial at one location to test mRNA-1273 as a vaccine for COVID-19 on March 19. The trial is expected to conclude June 1, 2021. Participants will be followed for one year. The trial will be conducted at Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in Seattle.
Year-to-date stock performance: Moderna’s shares have gained 45.7%.
Company: Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. REGN, -2.271%
Type: Treatment
Stage: Preclinical
Name: No name yet
Background: On Feb. 4, Regeneron announced it is working on developing monoclonal antibodies as treatments for COVID-19. The company’s VelocImmune platform uses genetically-engineered mice with humanized immune systems in preclinical testing. “We are aiming to have hundreds of thousands of prophylactic doses ready for human testing by end of August,” a spokesperson said. Christos Kyratsous, VP of infectious disease R&D and viral vector technology, is running the project.
Year-to-date stock performance: Regeneron’s shares are up 27.8%.
Company: Sanofi SNY, -4.284%
Type: Vaccine
Stage: Preclinical
Name: No name yet
Background: Starting Feb. 18, Sanofi is working with BARDA to test a preclinical vaccine candidate for severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) for COVID-19 using its recombinant DNA platform. It has a long history of producing vaccines in its Sanofi Pasteur business and acquired this candidate through its 2017 acquisition of Protein Sciences for $750 million. The French drugmaker previously worked with the organization on flu vaccines. Scientists in Meriden, Ct., are working on the vaccine; David Loew, Sanofi Pasteur’s EVP, is leading the project.
Timeline: A spokesperson said Sanofi aims to put a vaccine into a Phase 1 clinical trial between March 2021 and August 2021.
Year-to-date stock performance: Shares of Sanofi are down 4.3%.
Company: Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Ltd. TAK, -1.572%
Type: Treatment
Stage: Preclinical
Name: TAK-888
Background: Takeda is one of the most recent entrants to the race to develop a treatment for COVID-19. The Japanese drugmaker said March 4 it plans to test hyperimmune globulins for people who are at high risk for infection. As part of its research, which will be performed in Georgia, Takeda said it would need access to plasma from people who have recovered from COVID-19 or those who have received a vaccine if one is developed. Dr. Rajeev Venkayya, president of Takeda’s vaccine business, is the co-lead of the company’s COVID-19 response team. Like J&J, Takeda plans to examine whether other therapies, both experimental or with regulatory approval, may have treatment potential.
Year-to-date stock performance: Shares of Takeda are down 8.7%.
Company: Vir Biotechnology Inc. VIR, -12.47%
Type: Treatment
Stage: Preclinical
Background: Vir said Feb. 25 it is collaborating with Shanghai-based WuXi Biologics to test monoclonal antibodies as a treatment for COVID-19. If the treatment is approved, WuXi will commercialize it in China, while Vir will have marketing rights for the rest of the world. The preclinical company is run by George Scangos, the former CEO of Biogen.
Year-to-date stock performance: Vir shares have jumped 279%.
https://www.ibtimes.sg/who-says-ther...d-people-40581
The World Health Organisation has said there is no evidence of "reinfected" cases of coronavirus in China, after reports said earlier this week a young man in Wuhan died of coronavirus five days after he was discharged from a hospital.
"From the evidence we have, those cases were not reinfected," Maria Van Kerkhove, acting head of WHO's emerging diseases unit, said. She also suggested that initial tests that showed negative results could have been wrong in the first place
It should not affect a thing. This is the stupidest, most self-inflicted mass hysteria that I have seen in my entire life.
I mean, for Christ's sake, if you are afraid of dying from Coronavirus, that is literally 20 times less likely than being struck by lightning. Go buy a goddamn lottery ticket if you're into one-in-a-million chances.
This is almost entirely the result of shamelessly irresponsible reporting and fearmongering. Anything to get a click - truly a new low. Buy airline stocks, they're all down 50% for no reason.
See you Space Cowboy ...
Links below to article summarizing and full video (could not embed video) of CNBC interview this morning with Bill Gates.
He has directed a lot of his philanthropy to public health issues and warned in 2015 that preparations for a pandemic merited much greater concern than was being provided.
Sees economy starting to reopen at end of May (manufacturing & construction back up first) and schools reopening in the fall
Suggested therapeutic treatments for sick people could begin to roll out in four to six months, but it would take at least 18 months to develop a safe and effective vaccine to prevent COVID-19.
“I don’t think going to big, say, public sports-type events, that the economic benefit relative to the risks, that will work out until we’re back in normal times,” he said.
Sports leagues obviously disagree, but as the saying goes "it is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
Good stuff if you have the time to watch it from someone who cannot be accused of having his head in the clouds and lacking a business background
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/09/bill...nt-revert.html
https://www.cnbc.com/video/2020/04/0...-warnings.html
Any return to normalcy depends on being able to accurately test for this thing. Which we can still not do at a large enough scale. I continue to fail to understand why more people are not outraged over that simple fact. Screw masks, PPEs, and vents. We can't even manage to pull our crap together to test people. You want quarantines to end, less drastic measures to be emplaced for social distancing, and a reasoned return to work -- well its all magical fairy dust BS without the ability to rapidly and on a mass scale test for this thing.
To my knowledge, we still can't and don't have the capacity for that. The failure of leadership on this front is staggering.
Gates gets into the need for testing before you start to reopen the economy early in the interview at the 4 minute mark
As far as a return to a new normalcy (IMO for segments of the economy such as brick & mortar retail there is never going to be a return to previous levels) with everything up and running, he contends that is not going to happen until you get a vaccine.
They have locked down Italy completely. Also in Italy inmates have rioted, killed some guards, and taken some as hostages. I think everyone needs to calm down and take a deep breath.
You can still travel into and out of Italy. It is just only on necessary and unavoidable reasons https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51810673
"The government has said only those with a valid work or family reason that cannot be postponed will be permitted to travel. Passengers departing on flights, except temporary visitors, will have to justify themselves, as will all those arriving by plane. There are controls at train stations to check temperatures. Cruise ships are forbidden to dock at various ports."
It appears that it may have only been inmates that died as a result of drug overdoses during the riots/protests over the cessation of visiting privileges to the prison. No mention of guard deaths or hostage situations:
"Earlier on Monday, six inmates died amid riots at prisons across the country after authorities suspended all visits as part of attempts to control the spread of the disease. The trouble began in the northern city of Modena after inmates at the Sant'Anna prison were told that all visits had been suspended. Three people were reported to have died at the prison, while a further three died after being transferred from there. It is thought that at least two of the dead lost their lives to drug overdoses after they raided a prison hospital for the heroin substitute methadone."
See how this gets all overblown, even out of a desire to know the most information possible? The headlines make us think that no one can go into or out of Italy - except you can. Massive riot at prison! Oh. Wait, maybe it was just a little riot and some drug overdoses during the confusion.
This stuff is not good, but the manipulation of headline and lede paragraph tone and content can change how it impacts.
Last edited by Mojouw; 03-09-2020 at 07:33 PM.