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:
Get The Picture 
Obviously we’re all guessing at this point, but I’m really hoping it acts like most viruses and the summer heat mostly kills it off for us. If that happens tho, I do worry that we may get too complacent about it then it may come back with a vengeance next winter, if it circulates similar to the flu. If that happens and there’s still no vaccine available, it may be the back half of the schedule we have to worry about more so than the first few games. But again, we’re all guessing at this point.
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I thought and espoused the exact same until I listened to the Joe Rogan podcast I linked just below. Apparently summer head/humidity won’t do much to stop this thing.
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I’ve seen other experts saying the summer heat most likely will slow/stop it, and others who say at this point we just don’t know until we observe it unfold. I think the latter is the most honest answer.
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Its all a ho-ax! https://youtu.be/aLEifQDi9es
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Out of context but that’s where Trump haters excel.
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Please provide “context.”
If there is anything that trump loving windmill cancer sufferers require, its complete accuracy in the area of scientific knowledge….unless you’re a conservative. In which case reach deeply into your own ass and pull out whatever! In the bubble, there are no consequences.
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Is he going to post a Pepe the frog today?
Whats a playpen without short dick’s nazi symbology?
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What the hell does Pepe have to do with blaming Trump for the world’s ills? Honestly, Derek, you need to keep your eye on the ball.
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He’s done it before!
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You look great.
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Ugh. my wife stayed up “researching” the Coronavirus and had the audacity to wake me past midnight to share all her fears.
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Welcome to the party everyone! Here in Hong Kong, the toilet paper hoarding was so last month. Please try to keep up. If you want to get ahead of the game, go ahead and download Zoom onto your computer or phone so your kids can be taught online when the schools close or just to have business meetings, etc. You’ll thank me later.
Seriously, though, it’s been a wild and crappy (no pun) ride so far. The schools are indeed closed and will remain so until mid-April. But teachers are doing online lessons (even for kindergarten, but HK parents are a bit OCD about education). Some biz and govt offices have been closed, but most are reopening, at least on a split-schedule- some workers working M-W-F and the others on Tu-Th and then flipping the next week, to prevent total loss of staff if someone gets infected and everyone needs to quarantine.
Public sports fields have been closed since January 28, so I haven’t been able to play my favorite sport except for a trip to Thailand, February 14-15, which was a bit risky because of flying.
My wife and I have largely been working from home since the start of February and it gets pretty boring. If we go out to eat, we try to go to places with outdoor dining, but then as we experienced Monday, you have to put up with the smokers because most HK restaurants allow outdoor smoking and a lot of the bars allow it inside.
But if y’all could get it sorted out by July, I would appreciate it as I don’t really want to spend my summer trip dealing with more of the S.O.S.
Wash your hands.
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Your mention of Zoom reminded me of this: “Children were presumably glad to be off school – until, that is, an app called DingTalk was introduced. Students are meant to sign in and join their class for online lessons; teachers use the app to set homework. Somehow the little brats worked out that if enough users gave the app a one-star review it would get booted off the App Store. Tens of thousands of reviews flooded in, and DingTalk’s rating plummeted overnight from 4.9 to 1.4.” — https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n05/wang-xiuying/the-word-from-wuhan
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Had not heard about that
🙂 Thanks for sharing
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It’s ramping up here in the Bay Area. Schools are starting to close and counties are starting to ban large gatherings. We’ve already had the run on disinfectants and sanitizer. It’s pretty hard to find any of that type of stuff right now. I can tell from my morning commute that people are staying home.
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Your bay and my bay must not be the same. 🙂
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I would highly recommend that everyone watch/listen to the latest Joe Rogan podcast with infection disease expert, Michael Osterholm. Even if you can’t dedicate 90 minutes to it, the first 20 minutes or so is a solid overview. I must admit that this podcast gave me pause, and I’m revisiting my previous thoughts that all of this is over-hyped nonsense. With that said, I’m still in the camp that many Americans are reacting to this irrationally, while focusing on the wrong things (e.g. stocking up on toilet paper, avoiding people, etc while continuing to eat garbage while not exercising).
For example, according to Michael, smokers have a much higher chance of dying than non-smokers. Male smokers in China have a 10% chance of dying, while non-smokers are around 1-2%. However, Michael’s group has found that overweight and obese people have a similar mortality rate to smokers, and they are very afraid of mass deaths here given roughly half of Americans over the ave of 45 are categorized as obese. Thus, if you truly want to reduce your risk of contraction and/or death, you should be doing everything you can to get as healthy as possible asap, and stop eating shit food us Americans are so fond of.
There’s tons of additional useful info, and I must say I learned a ton from this and am much better aware and (hopefully) prepared…
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A few main takeaways for me personally: 1. Being quite overweight/obese in and of itself IS an underlying health condition. If you are a typical fat American yet think you are otherwise healthy, you are dead wrong. 2. Washing your hands and not touching your face is only half the battle. Merely breathing the same air of someone who is infected can infect you. 3. The warmer weather will not stop the coronavirus here.
We are only in the top of the 1st inning, with mass outbreak and up to 480K U.S. deaths to come. 5. If you are over 60 with underlying conditions (see above), take every precaution necessary. Younger/healthier Americans should fare quite well; same for children, who seem to be almost immune (zero deaths worldwide aged 10 and under). 6. Our Gov./hospitals are not prepared whatsoever, and when healthcare workers begin to get sick, the problems will compound further. Like what is happening in Italy now, understaffed hospitals short on equipment here might have to start deciding who lives and who dies.
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I see you went off the deep end.
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You might have missed me saying clearly that most Americans are acting irrationally, and again I’m in the camp that we don’t need to panic while keeping our priorities in check. With that said, IMO, those who aren’t open to new ideas and don’t purposely set out to challenge their own beliefs are a sad lot. In other words, most people want affirmation, not information.
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I do not know how serious this epidemic is going to get. However, I know that it has the potential to be a real blow to our economy and temporarily to our social fabric. As witnessed in Washington State – if it gets loose in a nursing home it is deadly. If we just assume that the “average” or younger Americans will only have a mild case and ignore ways to minimize the spread of virus we will be condemning our older and infirm society members to a very high mortality rate indeed. Enjoyed knowing you Mom, good luck!
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This is what I was going to say. I guess cyber security folks think a like lol.
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Joe Rogan smokes…….
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They are probably going to cancel the St Pats parade here in Savannah , it will be brutal the local economy. I hope they allow it to proceed , but I think cancellation is coming tomorrow.
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I was wondering wouldn’t all that alcohol cancel it out?
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Media driven paranoia. The same personal precautions were given ever year when flu season peaks. The difference now is the public bit on the hype. All news agencies are cashing in on paranoia or being pissed off at the trillions of dollars wasted.
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There is much wrong with this comment.
Flu has been around a long time. It’s priced into the system.
The corona virus is new. The health system doesn’t have the capacity to handle it on top of the flu and all the other things that hospitalize people.
China shut down a major economic province – 60 million people – because this thing broke their hospital system. Last I checked, China is not beholden to media panics. Italy just shut down their entire country because their system got swamped too. We’re talking hallways being turned into ICU wards.
Satellite photos from Iran show mass grave trenches being dug. Because their health care system was trash to begin with, and the mullahs were in complete denial on this thing through their late February elections.
This is not just another flu panic. But sounds like you’re going to learn that the hard way.
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Media driven paranoia. The same personal precautions were given ever year when flu season peaks. The difference now is the public bit on the hype. All news agencies are cashing in on paranoia or being pissed off at the trillions of dollars wasted.
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Couldn’t they focus their attention on obama’s birth certificate, cosmic pizza, false flags and jade helm? You know, REALITY!
Italy shut down because of the librul media!
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ALL the media is on board…not just the ones you don’t like. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle…no problem to full blown panic.
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So, it was the media in Italy who were able to convince a bunch of millionaires to cancel all their teams soccer games? They must really be persuasive.
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I was looking at the stats and wondering why the Italian population was such an outlier on their mortality rate. They have the oldest population in Europe and the average age of those killed from The Coronavirus was 81. That stat was just crazy. 81? Just thought it was an interesting fact.
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There are some small villages in Itlay where the life expectancy for women can be close to 100…
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People are still focusing on who dies. Which is not really what makes this thing such a big problem.
It’s how many people it hospitalizes. Not “a week in a private room with the nice nurse bringing you orange juice for a week” hospitalization. 2 to 3 weeks of serious care, which puts an enormous strain on the system.
That’s what the “just another flu” angle – which cost us weeks of preparation – missed entirely. The flu has been around a loooong time. It’s priced into everything already. Vaccines. Hospital beds. Staffing decisions. Even our bodies have priced it, with some natural collective immunity.
The corona virus is new. it’s not priced into anything. So, it’s potentially a hurricane hitting the hospital system. We can be like South Korea, aggressively testing and mitigating the disease so our system doesn’t get swamped. Or we can be like Italy, allowing events on the ground to dictate reactive policies.
The interview anecdote from a doctor in northern Italy that really hit home with me is the average ambulance response time: 8 minutes to over an hour. Strokes, heart attacks, or major accidents won’t make the virus stats page, but the virus seriously impedes the system’s ability to handle the things it had already priced into its SOPs.
There were people here last week mocking the response and sniffing that this would never have any real impact on a country with a real health system like Italy. 48 hours later, Italy shut down its northern provinces. 72 hours later, it extended to the entire country.
Italy has more doctors and ICU beds per capital than the US.
That said, just do your part. Try hard not to be a link in the chain. Public health is everyone’s business.
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Another place that did a remarkable job at great cost was Macau. They had 10 cases, which have all recovered now. It cost them shutting down the casinos which was the primary source of the economy, but it shut down the virus too.
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“We can be like South Korea, aggressively testing and mitigating the disease so our system doesn’t get swamped. Or we can be like Italy, allowing events on the ground to dictate reactive policies.”
I think we all know the answer to that one already…
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I’m most worried about the pharmaceutical giants who were unprepared for this. What if they fail to maximize their profits? Keep them in your prayers.
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Can’t they just use the flu vaccines and still make a profit?
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Try to keep current – most of our antibiotics come from China. Most of big pharma has moved their production to China.
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Good thing antibiotics aren’t what you treat viruses with.
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But it turns to pneumonia, which often does. Along with sinus infections, and treating multiple other issues
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Don’t worry, snake oil salesmen are happy to step in and sell you magic pills (now with silver!) that will protect you!*
*(As a supplement these statements do not get evaluated by the FDA)
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I have to admit, I did not think that my favorite TV preacher could be any more of a snake, but somehow he made it happen.
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JHC people. This is so overblown.
I counted up when I got home last night – I’ve been on 15 flights in the last 18 days. All over the continental US, some of the busiest airports. I’m not in particularly good shape. I’m doing fine.
Had a couple of Doctors at my house the other night for a social function. Their belief was that because of the lack of ability to test for it, the number of cases is way way way under reported. Their belief is that many people have had very mild symptoms for a couple of days and then felt better and chalked it up to a cold or something similar. This would suggest the mortality rate from the virus is infinitely lower than even the lowest estimated we have seen
It should come as no surprise that ground zero in the US is a nursing home.
The media is doing what the media does – sensationalize things and work people into a frenzy. It’s not nothing. It’s not fake news. It’s also not the end of the world and the media (and therefore the markets and the general population) have way over reacted here
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Thanks. Obviously your personal experience trumps Italy’s.
JHC, indeed.
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I’m heading to Italy in the not too distant future so I’ll give you a first hand account. I spoke to the woman organizing the trip yesterday who lives half the year in Italy so yeah I’ve got more insight than what I’ve read in the news
I can’t even read all the posts above. Satellite images of mass graves in Iran? Seriously? It’s amazing how people pick and choose which conspiracy theories they want to believe. It’s almost like people can’t live without fear and drama in their lives.
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Better add the Irish to your list of conspiracy theorists as Dublin has cancelled the St. Patrick’s Day parade.
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“Satellite images of mass graves in Iran?”
If somebody doesn’t tell the fucking idiots to throw out the heads and the tails, half the country will be blind or staggering around with the Jake.
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You might want to get your deposit back on that trip to Italy. Just sayin…
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Yeah let’s just cancel everything for the rest of 2020. That’ll help
If they’ll let us in, we’ll go and enjoy ourselves
To the poster who cited Josh Harvey Clemons as the reason for this shit show for not batting down the pass I say you’re a genius
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I have been to Europe many times, including Italy, and all the things that make it fun are banned or closed there right now with no end in site. Personally I would postpone it, but I hope you have a nice trip.
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Looks like his favorite president cancelled it for him.
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The whole point is for everyone to make and accept small sacrifices and life changes so that you are not a link in the chain that overwhelms the system and spreads the virus to the more vulnerable. You being fine is great but misses the bigger point. Folks who dismiss it as paranoia out of hand and make no changes to their routines / lifestyles and don’t do their part in social distancing are how this thing will get out of control.
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That’s a fair point. As I said in my original post, it’s not nothing and it’s not fake news. I agree that there are some logical things socially that make sense to do. But I still believe the media and therefore the markets and the general population have overblown this
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I think it’s unreasonable to raid grocery stores and stupid to close schools (doc on rogan podcast said 38% of nurses have school-aged kids. Who stays home ?).
I think it’s also equally unreasonable for those who personally do not have risk to dismiss their role in prevention. The “go to the game if you want” crowd is how the thing is going to go from fan A with few symptoms to fan B with few symptoms to fan B’s friend/relative/coworker who is in and out of cancer treatment with a compromised immune systems. It’s fucking selfish.
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What’s Josh Harvey Clemons got to do with this?
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Came here for this. Happy.
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Butterfly effect. By not knocking down that pass, he set off a chain of events that seven years later resulted in a global pandemic.
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I’d watch that sci fi movie, even if its cheesed up
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Just curious, how much time have you spent actively researching the coronavirus, particularly sources that might be counter to your own beliefs? I suspect that answer is none. Literally two days ago I had similar beliefs as yours, and though I have a very busy schedule, I carved out some time last night to look into this further. As a result, I now have a different viewpoint and better understanding overall. Mind you, I still believe many are being irrational with misguided priorities, but I’m certainly not flippantly dismissing this like you clearly are.
Enjoy the peanuts.
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Plenty actually. Lots of time in airports and on planes with an iPad and a WiFi connection
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Guys he watched a podcast so he is clearly an expert and has done his research, which was listening to a podcast. A podcast that has in the past promoted bigotry, sandy hook was a hoax, pizza gate conspiracy theories, and that Hillay was running a child sex ring from the white house while Obama watched.
You know a totally reputable source.
The CDC is telling you to practice social distancing and wash your hands.
But half of america thinks that getting covid-19 would be an awesome way to own the libs.
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Biden supporters could be in serious trouble.
https://babylonbee.com/news/despite-cdc-warning-biden-cant-stop-touching-other-peoples-faces
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You said what I was thinking re the podcast.
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I would certainly join in condemning Rogan if he interviewed Elizabeth Warren on issues with the virus. But he interviewed an expert on infectious disease. Are infectious disease experts only to be listened to if they appear on MSNBC?
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Yeah, that’s kind of an odd line of attack. Joe tends to have a lot of folks on, some certainly better than others, but going on there doesn’t magically take away someone’s previous credibility. Neal DeGrasse Tyson went on Rogan too, is he now not a leading astrophysicist?
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Interviewing Senator Sanders doesn’t make it a “podcast that has in the past promoted bigotry, sandy hook was a hoax, pizza gate conspiracy theories, and that Hillay was running a child sex ring from the white house while Obama watched.”
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How ’bout them #3-ranked Diamond Dawgs!
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USA Today Coaches poll has them #2. Of course that was before the 1-0 loss to Georgia Southern.
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Why is baseball consistently so much more competitive between schools like GS and UGA than football? Between D-1 and D-2 schools and even farther apart.
Honest question, I’m curious.
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My feeling is it’s the nature of the sport. The game of baseball is built around failing. The best hitters in the game fail 2/3 of the time to get a hit. Even making great contact and killing the ball many times still leads to getting out. The best hitter in MLB could face an average college pitcher and could easily go 0/4 on any given day. Contrast that with football and physical differences between the athletes on the field have a MUCH bigger influence on the outcome.
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Baseball is a fickle bitch. The best doesn’t always win, even when they are demonstrably better.
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Much fewer scholarship than a sport like football and that the top-tier talent has the ability to go pro straight from high school are probably the largest driving factors in the relative parity.
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I was thinking along similar lines, also that there is a heavy club presence from t-ball all the way to 18u. Tons of talent out there that does not require the positional physical attributes of football to be successful.
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To focus on the original prompt: I think SEC coaches will happily use this as an excuse to close practices and if that means not showing off the new offense to anyone because the spring game is cancelled, well, that’s a plus for everything but recruiting.
But I can’t see it working come fall. SEC fans aren’t the most practical at the best of times — I remember the complaints when the Houston game was postponed the week of 9/11, and Florida fans still blame that on why they lost to UT. Throw in a mix of partisanship, eroding trust for government in general, and a huge streak of individualism and…well the SEC could try, but I don’t think it’d work.
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It’s best to confine yourself to information sources that do not require ad sales to survive. Medically qualified opinions also help. The Centers for Disease Control https://www.cdc.gov/ and the National Institutes for Health https://www.nih.gov/ are two such sources. These are not alarmist sites. Neither believes this is simply another flu like situation. It’s best to remain calm. It’s also best to gather information now and prepare now. If those preparations become unnecessary, great. If not at least you won’t be surprised.
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But wait why get the real facts when you can listen to talking heads blame (insert political party here) for everything that is wrong.
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Literally just asking people to stay home if they can and wash their hands.
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Actually the CDC recommends quite a bit more than that. Just a few of their many recommendations:
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/home/checklist-household-ready.html
Plan for potential changes at your workplace. Talk to your employer about their emergency operations plan, including sick-leave policies and telework options.
Make sure you have access to several weeks of medications and supplies in case you need to stay home.
Clean and disinfect frequently touched surfaces such as tables, doorknobs, light switches, countertops, handles, desks, phones, keyboards, toilets, faucets, and sinks.
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Those are deep state!
What is Qanon saying?
Has Alex Jones sobered up enough to tell us the REAL story!
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My biggest fear is that all the precautions that we are taking will work well enough to minimize until summer, and that then we will say it was all for nothing, and conclude no precautions were really necessary, and then when fall comes…..yikes.
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I’ll just leave this here:
https://www.ebaumsworld.com/videos/cdc-white-house-give-conflicting-messages-about-coronavirus/86220634/
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So the symptoms are runny nose, sneezing, coughing, etc. With pollen season upon us that means just about everyone will qualify to be tested.
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Runny nose is not a Covid19 symptom. Two most common are fever and dry cough. It inflames your lungs, not your sinuses.
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Just repeating what I heard are symptoms while listening to the radio driving home. All I suggested was the pollen comparison.
So my wife goes to her regular annual checkup yesterday. Guy barges into the waiting room coughing and tells the lady in the window he thinks he’s got it. Office immediately closes, guy taken away via ambulance, everyone else told to leave, and a short while later the building was undergoing the sanitizing. The ought to re-name it the clusterfuck virus.
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This is why South Korea and Germany put up drive thru testing.
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My ex was visiting my daughter at Yonsei U in Seoul. The hotel she was in was taking the temp of every person that walked in the lobby of that hotel. Daughter is essentially stuck in the dorm and classes are online. A person hit the lobby of the hotel with a fever and they moved everyone off that floor, the floor below and above. South Korea isn’t playing. It might not have any kind of impact on the spread, but they’re not thinking it’s the flu.
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They also have rapidly diminishing case numbers and a fatality rate over 100 times less than Italy’s Lombardi region.
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Trump would NEVER blame a president for an infectious disease nor would a “fair and balanced” media:
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Obviously the Russians engineered the pandemic to give Trump an excuse to cancel the election.
#ItsHappening
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https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
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If we can find a way to navigate the draconian NCAA’s rulebook, we can find a way to navigate around public health warnings.
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Fauci is obviously a never trumper.
Might even be mexican.
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Teeny gassy dick conveniently forgets the well-known principle that crime never pays:
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/06/donald-trump-lawsuit-contractors
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Digging up a four year-old article on him? Well, you certainly showed me.
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This hysteria is just all made up and flagellant.
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They’re even inventing new, fake, hostile, global entities to tell us lies!
“World Health Organization declares the coronavirus outbreak a global pandemic”
Sure it is. The next thing you’ll know some “doctor” will say that trump was full of shit when he said windmills cause cancer. Everyone knows that the Dutch have more cancer than anyone! Lots of people are saying so!
Trump is our own Don Quixote giving those windmills the what for!
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At least the pandemic gives us another opportunity to see the racism in everything.
#AntiRacist
#OrangeManBad
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I don’t know why I bother since the geniuses here have it all figgered out.
The three phases of Covid-19 – and how we can make it manageable
https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/09-03-2020/the-three-phases-of-covid-19-and-how-we-can-make-it-manageable/
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ASEF is on point. Read his replies above.
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Yay!!:
https://www.dawgnation.com/football/georgia-football-david-pollack-hall-of-fame
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He dang dure made opposing offensive players sick when he was around them.
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*dang sure
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Lib rag National Review says:
“In a serious public-health crisis, the public has the right to expect the government’s chief executive to lead in a number of crucial ways: by prioritizing the problem properly, by deferring to subject-matter experts when appropriate while making key decisions in informed and sensible ways, by providing honest and careful information to the country, by calming fears and setting expectations, and by addressing mistakes and setbacks.
“Trump so far hasn’t passed muster on any of these metrics.”
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Jesus dude. Got anything except memes?
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For middle schoolers who think the world is full of Nazis and Russian assets? Nah.
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You are a fucking moron. . . still.
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Chill dude. Don’t have a stroke. 😉
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Says the guy breathlessly waiting to share his next sophomoric picture.
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You think, “Russia!” deserves a sober response? Dude.
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That’s not very nice.
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What do you clowns want him to do. He stopped travel from China to America and you fucktards called him racist. Then the next day said he didn’t do enough. Liberalism leads to the worst virus TDS.
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I want him–just every once in a while–to halfway know what he’s talking about.
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Yeah like Obama. If Trump found a cure for this virus you clowns would complain – yeah but why didn’t he find a cure yesterday.
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That’s a hypothesis that will never be tested in the real world.
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In hindsight, it was stupid for him to dismantle our Pandemic Response Team in 2018 to give the money to corporations and the rich. It also sucked that he cut CDC money for combating global pandemics by 80% at the same time. If he would declare a state of emergency, it would free up funding for testing and treating those without money to see a doctor. Instead, he is just trying to prop up the stock market, actively hiding information, punishing those who don’t lie to these ends, and still failing to make testing widely accessible because he doesn’t want the real numbers out there. Trump’s handling of this is disastrous. He, specifically, is making it worse by his poor decisions and failure to lead.
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It’s curious how some people can view letting people keep some of their own money as a “giveaway.” Rich people don’t own their own property. They only own what the government declines to steal from them. And they probably aren’t even grateful to the politicians that allowed them to keep what they earned!
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The government serves a purpose that is proportional to the extent to which it benefits taxpayers. Those who have more owe more because they take more. Your crocodile tears for the rich are precious. Trump is incompetent. Your ideas about distribution of money are morally bankrupt.
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Private property is morally bankrupt? That’s cute. And, unsurprisingly, you’re exactly assbackward on who takes more from the government. Jeff Bezos isn’t cashing government checks. His tax bills are paying for lots of bureaucratic preening that you mistake for morality.
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The tax rates paid by the wealthiest in our nation are criminal. They reap much much more benefit from our country than those “cashing government checks.” Amazon paid ~1.2% taxes on their profits in 2019…that is criminal. Giving them more is criminal. Blaming the poor for being poor and underpaid is immoral and unsustainable. We are currently reaping the results of “trickle down” snake oil. Deregulation is simply socializing corporate costs for the environmental and social impacts of businesses. They need to pay their fair share. People who work full time deserve to have some semblance of security for their hard work. The irony of your NPC memes is incredibly viscous. That you believe your party over your eyes, ears, all intelligence agencies in this country and abroad, all scientific organizations in this country and abroad, and continue to vociferously do so is telling and shameful.
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You think the government stealing money from private parties helps the environment? Seriously?
I don’t have a party, bro. But it’s cute that, despite the government being caught lying again and again, it will never be enough for you to lose your faith in it. Good for you. I’m sure a few more decades wasting a hundred trillion or two will do the trick for fixing what ails us. And if not, well I guess we’ll just have to trust in our benevolent overseers even harder, eh?
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You clearly have a party and are lying. When corporations are not held accountable for fixing the pollution they create which impacts the health of our people, these costs are being socialized. Conservatives (you!) have no problem with socializing costs when the money is funneled to the rich and your overlords say it’s a good thing. The government is what we make it (for now). If you elect incompetent, corrupt people, you get corrupt, incompetent government. Which direction do you think ignoring oversight, accountability, norms, experts, professionals, scientists, etc. moves our government? Trump is incompetent and corrupt and there are mountains of evidence to support this. You chose and continue to choose poorly.
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You clearly don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. My defenses of Trump and Republicans are mainly from idiotic notions like accusations of colluding with Russia or the idea that the government has a moral claim to private property.
And yes, I understand negative externalities. What leftists (you!) fail to realize is that government is a singularly poor mechanism to abate these externalities. If Hunter Biden is on the board of a factory that pollutes other property, the government will not intervene. You really believe that paying money to the government will change the weather or clean up the environment?
Still, you fundamentally fail to understand the entire notion of private property. If you have $100 and I steal $50, you are left with $50. Next week, if you have another $100 and I only steal $40, I haven’t “given” you $10. I simply stole less of your own money. Morally, you should have $200 and I should have nothing. Instead, you have $110, I have $90, and morons will claim that I have the moral high ground because I deserve your money, but you don’t.
Apparently, you earnestly believe that better experts and bureaucrats in government will transform the entire system of theft of private property into an efficient and morally defensible system. But it won’t. And hilariously, your party has nominated Hillary and is on the verge of nominating Joe Biden in order to “reform” the government. Because Lord knows those two, who spent decades in D.C., aren’t corrupt insiders who profit from the system. Nope.
#OrangeManBad
#HunterBidenReallyIsAnExpert
#NothingToSeeHere
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I miss the playpen on favorite books…………….
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It’s the playpen, knock yourself out….
I’ve still not finished Blood Meridian although admittedly on hiatus from it. For my birthday my wife got me the entire series of John MacDonalds Travis McGee novels, those I haven’t read in years.
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I’m on book five of the Bernard Gunther novels. Good stuff
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Bernie is the bomb.
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March Madness to be played without fans,
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That’s just fucking nuts.
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I heard. I wonder how much cost to advertise on television went up when that statement dropped. Not that the NCAA, TBS, CBS, or truTV would take advantage of an unfortunate situation….
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Do fans get their money back on tickets?
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I won’t be watching.
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I have been following this for a while. I met and had dinner with Chinese suppliers in late January. We stay in constant contact. They were worried flying back and were quarantined at home like everyone else in their city. Their city is 3 hours from Wuhan in a different province. No one in their family was sick. Their factory is now open for business and I had a shipment reach the Shanghai port this week. They are operating with some restrictions but things are operating. You can FedEx from China everywhere except Wuhan province.
I traveled last week to a convention, will travel next week to Vegas for the opening round of the tourney, and will go skiing in April. I am not worried. I have no medical experience but the corona virus is not new. This strand is. I am pretty sure people have a corona virus every year and it likely kills thousands of people. We don’t test for it so it is considered flu/pneumonia. Millions of test kits hit the market this week and next week. The numbers are going to skyrocket and panic will hit but death rates will go way down. It will be a bad cold for most people. Some at risk will die but they do every year from flu (probably corona virus just not diagnosed). Stay clean and you will be fine.
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With the news about the NCAA’s decision regarding March Madness, the Atlanta sports curse strikes again.
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From my understanding after reading everyone of these reply, okay skimming the ones with more than two sentences:
Purchase as much TP as you can find because that stuff is the most valuable commodity in times of panic.
In some countries it is a real thing that kills old folks and in others it is a made up media hoax to attack the Irish by shutting down St. Paddy’s day.
Trump or Liberals are the root cause because the people on the other side of the isle are all to blame for my problems.
Our wives are the real reason we are concerned over this deep down.
Jim is young and healthy and going to Italy.
What have I missed?
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Jim Bakker is sleazy enough to try to convince old people that his magic antidote to a potentially deadly respiratory viral infection will protect them, ’cause, you know, God told him it would? Not for free, mind you…
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Yep forgot about Ol’ Jim. His silver works best when you wear Brett Farve’s copper fit underware and throw an extra $20 in the plate.
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“I mean, people always say, well, the flu does this, the flu does that. The flu has a mortality of 0.1 percent. This has a mortality rate of 10 times that. That’s the reason I want to emphasize we have to stay ahead of the game in preventing this.”– Anthony Fauci, Director National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
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Ehhh the city of Savannah has cancelled St. Patrick’s Day Parade, starting Thursday the ACC tournament will not allow fans in Greensboro, Jason Isbell and the 500 Unit and Carlos Santana have cancelled tours.
Meanwhile in Nashville where a tornado just took 25 lives the SEC Basketball Tournament “Just Means More”.
Take ya’ll’s left and right politics and shove it up your arse. It’s time WE come together and agree to disagree in a civil manner. This is one of few places that should be able to have civil discourse. Covid-19 is about to bust us, the economy and your local Walmart wide open.
Perhaps we do have the strongest economy in the free world. Then perhaps the left and right will quit stuffing their pockets with lobbyists of corporations, insurances, banks and big pharma to bring jobs back to the USA. Our meds are made in China and India. Hell to even talk to a DirecTV person you have to deal with phone operators in India. “FFS” lets get our shit together.
NAFTA was a bust the unions deal. Now mill towns sit empty. There is a reason they call the northern states the “Rust Belt”. Cause your fricken GMC Denali is made in Mexico. If you need a fan belt or a radiator hose you might have to wait cause we shut those doors in 75’ and they come from France+ shipping. We complain about homeless and DSS. What if we made are own socks and jeans. What about if you could actually call a doctors office and speak to a person, a nurse or even a doctor. Hell call anywhere and talk to a person and get something done.
I don’t have no 401k’s, I don’t fly 18 times across the country to do business every two weeks. I don’t have any stocks or bonds. I went to the Sugar Bowl once. In Atlanta ! West Virginia beat the Dawgs ass. Never been to Jacksonville. I don’t begrudge ya’ll that do that regularly and are McGill donors. It’s just time to come together….. Damn just Damn read what ya’ll spew to each other. The only common thread I have with ya’ll is loving the Red and Black. Why can you not act in such a manner.
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Tribalism has gone insane.
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You can’t have a civil discussion with people who won’t admit that there are such things as facts and reality. If you insist on inventing your own or you change the subject when confronted with both, then the only thing left is mockery.
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Amen. Russia! Treason!
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Some people are too far too dumb to mock, so you ignore them completely.
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Don’t forget cursing. The smartest middle schoolers curse profligately to demonstrate their intellect. Adults just don’t get it, those fucking fuckers!
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Yeah Derek, you should recycle some years old memes that everyone has already seen a million times with some words changed to show how smart and hip you are! That’s how the smartest demonstrate their intellect…ripping off other peoples’ ideas. Adults just don’t get it, those fucking fuckers!
Hey Nap…do one of those with the kid straining about me being triggered!!!! That’d be totally hilarious REEEEEEEEEE
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If you don’t like cliches, don’t be one. Easy.
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