IIRC, one of the news articles said that all of the inter-team spread known so far could be traced back to roommates from multiple different teams living together.
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If thatâs the case thatâs great because it might potentially isolate where the spread came from and show the spread isnât as drastic in terms of inter-team spread.
At the same time itâs also pretty bad because if players from different teams are living together, then so many of these protocols are basically useless. If athlete from Team A is living with athlete from Team B, the virus can then spread from Team A to Team B. Then a different player on Team B can take it home to their roommate from Team C, or their SO on Team D.
And clearly those risks have always existed, but the new strand might be making those issues 10x worse than they were before. Hence the need for a pause to try and mitigate everything.
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Via my wife who is a health care professional and front line worker who sees Covid patients on a near daily basisâŚ
CDC recommendations are for a 10 day quarantine for someone that tests positive for Covid-19. The recommendation for someone with direct exposure to someone with the virus is 14 days if not tested, or 7-10 days if they test negative. Obviously the team falls into the âtestedâ category. There are no quarantine recommendations for âsecond hand exposureâ. To her knowledge, there are not different recommendations for this new strain, but that is a very new thing.
With this in mind, it seems reasonable that teams that isolate and continue to test negative could safely return to action by early next week. Hereâs to hoping the team stays healthy and safe.
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Itâs been a day and I still donât know how someone went to the UK during a pandemic where that country has possibly the worst Covid situation in the world with their variant and the athlete came back and didnât quarantine. It is unfathomable that was allowed to happen.
Reading the memo, my hunch is the basketball team, hockey team, etc. will be allowed to restart in a week assuming no positive cases. The track team, or wherever this initiated, will be shut down for awhile. The university will also have to reassess how to limit contact between the sports teams.
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new york now let people out of quarantine if tested negative four days into quarantine.
I may be wrong but I think in reading thru the MDHHS memo that any positive test will be put thru the sequencing.
I was referring to Dylanâs question about how the country generally handles this strain.
Michigan is apparently in a very small minority that is sequencing every test to differentiate B117 and normal covid.
The rest of the countryâs solution is to ignore it. So far at least.
Just jumping in to point out something I keep seeing here that doesnât make a ton of sense to me. There seems to be a line of thinking in some people that if the protocols in place allow for ANY potential exposure to other teams, students, staff, etc. then that means any attempt to reduce the likelihood of exposure is pointless or that the plan is to just not worry about it. It seems to me that a lot of this stuff is more about minimizing risk than eliminating it altogether. Just not sure itâs so black and white is all
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Yes, another related thing that I may have missed, what if the shoe were on the other foot? Suppose PSUâs AD refused to follow the state of Pennsylvaniaâs strong recommendation that they shut down for two weeks. Would we expect Michigan teams to travel there for games? Would we welcome their teams here?
I donât think so. The Big Ten schools are in this together. A big part of that is taking adequate precautions designed to protect each other. If one school is going to go against their stateâs health department recommendations, they had better be prepared to make a VERY convincing case to the other schools.
No matter how misguided we may think those recommendations are, I donât think thatâs possible on such short notice. Itâs more practical to try and convince the state that their recommendation to shut down is no longer necessary.
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I think the announcement and details are often left vague in these situations because departments and organizations want to be somewhat flexible as they respond to ever changing situations. I think it makes total sense to pause everything a few days to determine the full spread, as well as develop new protocols if necessary. There are some shared spaces, so even though some have tested 100% negative, I think itâs ok to pause this next week. If they are negative through this next weekend, I think the teams that havenât had spreads should be able to resume. Michiganâs AD has not been transparent for decades, probably ever. FOIA are always given the run around and we get very little information about a ton of things. Is what it is.
That said, obviously some massive breach in the protocols or the development of them. If they let a player travel abroad and not have them quarantine, I donât know what theyâre thinking. Supposed to be one of the top public schools in the country and have highly rated medical and science departments and facilities. Craziness. I also think it is odd to allow students from multiple teams to live together. I get that they may have been friends and roommates the entire time at Michigan, but if players want to compete, it doesnât make sense to let them live with whoever they want. But we get back into the ethics of having âamateurâ athletics at all during this time.
Seems weird that weâre shutting down athletics but not the whole campus, as surely this strain is present in groups that donât get tested daily. But the whole response to the virus has been confusing on all levels. States doing wildly different things. What is and isnât allowed to open. Itâs confusing and itâs ok to be confused and question it. I donât think any of us have the answers.
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BTW- I donât think this part of the Freep article has been mentioned yet:
*The Washtenaw County Health Department is warning residents who visited the Meijer on Ann Arbor-Saline Road or Briarwood Mall on Jan.17 of possible exposure to the coronavirus variant. *
*According to a news release from the health department, Washtenaw County confirmed a total of five cases of the B.1.1.7 coronavirus variant, and the department continues to conduct additional sequencing for other possible COVID-19 variant cases. The new coronavirus variant transmits more easily and can lead to more positive cases, the health department said. *
The county is urging people who visited Meijer from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. and Briarwood Mall from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. last Sunday to immediately get tested for the virus.
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Yes. And while itâs pretty forgivable to be upset over this turn of events, it should also be remembered how upset we wereânanoseconds agoâat the prospect that Purdue might place our own players at risk.
To me, that seems to be more evidence that they should go big (Washtenaw County lockdown) or go home (maintain current protocols after a brief pause to test to make sure it hasnât spread across teams). Those are really the only outcomes that make logical sense.
Ultimately B117 is out there, very likely far more prominently than we know because regular covid tests arenât testing for the variant. Itâs definitely going to be widespread very soon. They just need to decide if itâs going to be treated differently than the OG covid. If so, it calls for an aggressive complete lockdown of the locations where itâs found if the goal is to stop the spread (think county, not one athletic department - no half measures). If not, we have had covid protocols for a long time now that should continue to be maintained.
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a temporary shutdown of all activists but let people out once they tested negative in 3-4 days would be a reasonable approach.
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So I would guess there are variants of a similar genetic make up as the UK variant that has caused this shutdown already in circulation in the US. From what I understand, the UK, South Africa and Brazil variants are thought to have a relatively similar genetic make up. Viruses mutate rapidly and of course their objective is to survive just like any other organism, and so in all isolated communities where a virus is able to circulate for as long as COVID-19 has then the virus will continue to mutate to optimise its infection capability. And the thought is that basically in each community if given enough time all viruses will mutate to more or less the same strain. So I would think that even if the UK variant hasnât made it to the shores of the US yet (would be surprised if that is the case as it has been in circulation in parts of the UK since last fall) then there is probably a comparable variant already in circulation in the US. The UK is a world leader in terms of sequencing the genome of viruses. So they were always going to be first to identify new strands of the virus. From what I have read is that in the US they are only doing genetic profiles of a pretty small population of the virus so they may not have found other variants that are in circulation. Anyway, all I am trying to say is that I would think that the risk now to the student athletes is probably not that much more significant than it was last week. So while I am not a proponent of the universities playing sports now as I think it is just another example of them taking advantage of student athletes (having said that I have enjoyed the fun of watching the menâs team play at such a high level) without a proper voice or compensation for the student athletes, but if they are going to play then I am not sure that this shutdown is not an over-reaction to a well publised variant of the virus, where a similar variant may already be in circulation in the states.
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I agree with your comment. It seems a more level headed response to the suggested shutdown would have been Michigan issuing a statement that they acknowledge the current situation, are postponing their next game, and beginning stricter testing/sequencing for the new covid variant. Then you allow the teams to test out of the 5ish day pause. A full two week pause jumped the gun.
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Itâs crazy to me that a non-revenue generating sport let an athlete go home to the UK and return during the B117 spread without quarantining. Meanwhile our hoops team played on NYE and Christmas day to avoid going home and contacting Covid. The sport of that individual should lose funding and Manuel should be in serious hot water. Do we have any leadership?
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Iâm not sure punishing a whole team by defunding that sport is a reasonable response. The hoops team played on the two holidays for $$$ reasons. The pandemic was just an excuse.
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Iâm not being contentious, did they actually âlet a player travel abroad and not quarantineâ or did the âplayerâ just do this on their own with no advice or guidance? I cannot imagine a coach or an athletic department official would have given permission for this, but most certainly if the athletic department was aware then testing and quarantining would have been required.
Does anyone know if it was actually a player? I ask because to my knowledge the name of the person has not been released, not should it be, and Iâve read elsewhere on social media, definitely not a completely reliable source, that it was a staff member. Iâm not sure we know the complete circumstances. Actually, let me take that back, I KNOW we donât know all the circumstances.
Iâve also seen conjecture as to what sport this person might have been involved with. Has that been released? I appreciate the direction this forum has gone in the last 12 hours or so. Several posters and Dylan have been very calm and measured in their responses and I appreciate that.
As for me, those who know me, know that I will always err on the side of protecting and ensuring the health of our student athletes, all of them, and of course their families and the surrounding community. I will always side with science, but we need to know and understand the science, or at least to trust the scientists whose experience and expertise I believe should be driving the decisions that are being made. People often say things on social media that just simply are not fact. We need to be careful about that.
Iâve lived for 73 years, almost 74. This is probably the most tragic and horrifying time of my life, and yet I have my health, as do my family membersâŚso far. I have an income that has not been affected by the pandemic, but there are so many who have been affected in tragic ways. Nearly 425,000 deaths in the US alone, millions more around the world. Millions of Americans who are out of work, through no fault of their own, who CANNOT pay their bills, who struggle to put food on the table and who fear what tomorrow will bring. Many have lost hope.
So, I am so grateful to the young men who play basketball for Michigan, MY (and yours) Michigan Wolverines. I am thankful that I have seen them play 14 times this year. I HOPE I get to see them play againâŚsoon. I hope they will begin to play and practice in less than the original 14 days, but if they donât, I will continue to hope for the future. And I will hope and pray for their safety and the safety of their teammates, and their fellow athletes from other sports, and their families and the surrounding community. I will hope and pray, as I ALWAYS do, for those who are without hope in America and for those who cling to hope because itâs all they have.
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Why would you punish the sport for following the rules given to them? If they were told they didnât have to quarantine, thatâs on the institution, not the individual or the team.
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