[News] Auston Matthews tests positive for COVID-19

[tvp2003]

Originally Posted by blender

I don't know what things are like in other places, but in the construction industry in BC interior we are flat out busy and everyone is back to work.
There is a bevy of protocols around distancing and disinfecting and there is a pretty general buy-in although most people aren't militant about it.
As a superintendent I am carrying out regular meetings to remind and reinforce my staff and trades about how we should be operating. That said, we are all going home to our families, so we aren't in any type of bubble.

My point is basically that if we can do it, why can't the NHL?

Well, I’m guessing part of the reason why the BC interior has avoided ongoing infection is because there isn’t a lot of international travel happening (especially from places with high infection rates). For the NHL to start, you literally have to fly the entire league (including all players and staff) from other provinces, states and countries into cities to start training camp and/or hub cities to start games.

The bigger issue however is what happens when Covid infects one or more players on a team in the middle of a five game series. You want to talk about asterisks — can you imagine half the roster playing against a third of another roster in the Finals? Meanwhile, if Joe the roofer gets infected, he stays home and life carries on.

[blender]

Originally Posted by tvp2003

Well, I’m guessing part of the reason why the BC interior has avoided ongoing infection is because there isn’t a lot of international travel happening (especially from places with high infection rates). For the NHL to start, you literally have to fly the entire league (including all players and staff) from other provinces, states and countries into cities to start training camp and/or hub cities to start games.

The bigger issue however is what happens when Covid infects one or more players on a team in the middle of a five game series. You want to talk about asterisks — can you imagine half the roster playing against a third of another roster in the Finals? Meanwhile, if Joe the roofer gets infected, he stays home and life carries on.

I agree, but if you quarantine all the players and staff for sufficient time prior to the commencement of the games, it should be contained, no?

[timbit]

Florida, California, Tennessee, Texas , Arizona and many other states are showing dramatic increases in COVID cases. The states mentioned have 8 NHL teams.

Going to be a tough go, IMO.

Quite a few pro athletes in these states have been affected.

[transplant99]

Originally Posted by blender

I agree, but if you quarantine all the players and staff for sufficient time prior to the commencement of the games, it should be contained, no?

As long as everyone adheres to the protocol...which could be a challenge, Especially in Vegas.

50 personnel per team, plus league officials and on-ice officials. Also the off ice guys and arena employees.

Its a monumental undertaking.

[Passe La Puck]

Being strong doesn't make you less susceptible to catch a virus, jesus christ people. When we're talking about 5% death rates or "only 2.5% required hospitalization" and only half of them have ongoing issues afterwards. Each team will have 50 staff and about 20 teams are participating. That's a thousand people, so takes those percentages and multiply them by 10 to get your potential head count on these cases.

[savemedrzaius]

Hah of course it's a Leaf and Matthews at that. So Leafy.

[CF84]

I don't think they need to shut it down.


There will always be a risk that someone may end up with lung problems or possibly even dead, but I believe that many players are at a greater risk at home with family. I have seen far too many people that are living exactly the same lifestyle as before this all started and I would also wager that there are some players who are around family members that are exposing them at a far greater extent. I think many of the players would be far safer in a quarantined environment than bored at home (which can lead to hanging around with someone who leads you to believe they have been cautious).



Interesting fact. Over 7% of my hometown Brooks, Alberta had Coronavirus. 7% of Calgary is around 93,500.


Brooks population: 14,451

Covid 19 cases: 1,117

Active cases: 1

Deaths: 9

Mortality rate: 0.8%

We had the highest infection rate in Canada so they did extensive testing which has led to some interesting (and probably more honest) numbers. I do believe Coronavirus is serious, but with the extra testing in Brooks (only about 3500 of 14,500 people participated) many people who were very mildly ill or who had no symptoms at all, were found to be sick with COVID 19. I was sick before the testing center, so I won't know if it was Covid until I take an antibody test.

I hope this doesn't come across as me taking all this lightly...I was very recently diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (possibly advanced) and I already have Hashimoto's and asthma so I personally need to be extra careful for my wife and girls.

[dino7c]

Originally Posted by Igottago

Places like the UK and Spain had big issues with the virus. Its not like the premier league moved to be played in New Zealand.

You keep answering your own questions

[Igottago]

Originally Posted by dino7c

You keep answering your own questions

So if the infection rate in the US gets to the same level of the UK or Spain you'd be for a re-start? It's not like they are out of the woods with the virus.

People here are suggesting there to be no pro sport here until 2021.

[blender]

Originally Posted by Passe La Puck

Being strong doesn't make you less susceptible to catch a virus, jesus christ people. When we're talking about 5% death rates or "only 2.5% required hospitalization" and only half of them have ongoing issues afterwards. Each team will have 50 staff and about 20 teams are participating. That's a thousand people, so takes those percentages and multiply them by 10 to get your potential head count on these cases.

There is no way there is a 5% death rate.
.5% at worst and that is likely high.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by blender

I agree, but if you quarantine all the players and staff for sufficient time prior to the commencement of the games, it should be contained, no?

Theoretically, but I'm extremely sceptical of that working in practice. Let's remember it's not just the players, but all the staff too. That's a ton of people who have families. Are they planning to house every masseuse and equipment guy with their teams? Probably? Those people are then going to need a lot of people running errands for them and servicing them. How do you make sure nothing comes in with them?

The more people you have isolated somewhere, the more people you need to go in and out of that bubble for maintenance reasons, and then when you have a lot of people stuck in with each other, once one person gets it it starts spreading very fast. It's why group isolation is not generally a thing; it rarely works very well.

As we've seen with many elderly homes, "let's keep all of them isolated" is in no way trivial, especially for any length of time. Now let's replace bedridded old people with hundreds of young men stuck in hotel rooms for week and weeks. I can't see that isolation holding very well. People will break the rules because that's how people are, and the rules will not be perfect to begin with.

Around Europe at least we're already seeing that people are by now just tired of being afraid, and tired of being careful. People stop social distancing and stop worrying about hygiene all the time, because it's too tiresome to live that way, and in some countries like Czech this has already led to new outbreaks.

Of course teams have good resources to throw at this, and the games and practices will keep the boys busy to some extent, so maybe it will work... but I'm very sceptical.

[Scroopy Noopers]

Originally Posted by Igottago

Why make the distinction? It's not like the entire planet isn't dealing with Covid.

Because a lot of countries are doing a hell of a lot better than the US.

[tripin_billie]

I was in Vegas last weekend and drove down the Strip on Saturday night. Yeah, no social distancing or masks to be seen. I don't see how Vegas is going to work.

[Robbob]

The US was always the wildcard with the way they are handling it. Players that live in hot zones would probably be safer in a hub environment because the rules will be strictly enforced and adhered to.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by dino7c

Maybe because the majority of NHL teams are in the country with the most current cases

It’s not just Covid - there are daily protests and curfews in the US. Unprecedented upheaval in the economy and culture.

[calumniate]

So it's now 11 out of around 1000 hockey players infected. That's greater than the average.. but to be fair they're skipping lines and testing more

[Johnhitbox]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

The truth is, if we are going to wait for a vaccine, we might as well cancel next season as well. It probably won't be until spring 2021 as the earliest that a vaccine will be developed, produced and distributed to enough people. And that is being optimistic.

If we are waiting for zero cases, it's not going to happen. At some point, society is just going to start accepting the risk and consequences of going on with life as if everything is normal.

Vaccine for a coronavirus? Maybe 2030.. they’ve been working on one since 1984. The strain of covid-19 keeps mutating, and probably is more similar to the common cold, or HSV (herpes simplex virus. people mistakenly associate this with a flu, or bacteria.

Scientists basically put sars cov- 1 on the back burner, mers still doesn’t have a vaccine, and thats a 34.4% death rate. H1n1 has a really, really high mortality rate. I’m not sure the exact numbers, but at the end of 2010, it had killed over 60k Americans, and had a vaccine developed early on that year. Again, that was part of the original Spanish flu, but mutated with a pig in Mexico, and became the swine flu. So, they had to adapt the vaccine to work with it.

Maybe we’ll get a vaccine for covid-19, or maybe we just have to develop a decent treatment for it. And for god sakes, keep it out of our senior homes.

[GreenLantern]

Ya just cancel it, we've already adjusted to no playoffs, the world has enough distractions right now. Just keep pumping out VOD movies and concerts, that seems to help us.

Also it's summer for NA so... we can be outside 90% of the day.

[Manhattanboy]

Originally Posted by GreenLantern

Ya just cancel it, we've already adjusted to no playoffs, the world has enough distractions right now. Just keep pumping out VOD movies and concerts, that seems to help us.

Also it's summer for NA so... we can be outside 90% of the day.

Ya the NHL is a non profit and the players a bunch of volunteers so just cancel.

[djsFlames]

Lock 'em up in the arena and make 'em play!