Your 3.11.20 Playpen

It’s spring, when an older man’s heart turns to pondering the coronavirus.  (If you were married to someone as obsessed with it as my spouse is, you’d be pondering, too.)  I thought I’d throw a couple of topics related to the illness out for discussion today.

First, the scariest thing right now is that we simply don’t know enough about it.  We also probably won’t have a vaccine available for the general population until 2021.  In the meantime, that leaves us with mitigation as the best defense.  We’re already seeing a number of sporting events around the world being affected, with, I suspect, plenty more to come.

Along those lines, I wonder if G-Day is going to be open to the public next month, or cancelled outright.  That, at least, is a decision that doesn’t cost the athletic department money.  But what happens come September if the best advice from experts is to stay away from big crowds, especially in a closed setting, like Georgia’s opener at MBS?  Where does Butts-Mehre take things?  Or the SEC, for that matter?  I really don’t know right now, but that has the potential to be an expensive proposition.

On a somewhat lighter note, I was sitting around with several friends last night, Georgia fans all, and one suggested a marketing idea that… well, I wanted to mock, but started to think in this day and age wasn’t as crazy as it first sounded.  The idea?  Medical masks with school logos on them.

Yeah, me, too.

Have at it in the comments.

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UPDATE:  Saying it out loud…

A top federal health official told lawmakers on Wednesday that the coronavirus would continue to spread in the United States, issuing a stark warning: “The bottom line: It is going to get worse,” said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

He indicated that the National Basketball Association should bar audiences from its games. “We would recommend that there not be large crowds. If that means not having any people in the audience as the N.B.A. plays, so be it,” he said.

He really means more than just the NBA, right?

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UPDATE #2:

Among other warnings Gamecocks add to this release, there's this: "Per guidelines from the CDC people over the age of 60 with preexisting medical conditions should avoid attending events with large crowds because they are at greater risk of complications related to COVID-19."

— Josh Kendall (@JoshTheAthletic) March 11, 2020