Pritzker puts Illinois High School basketball on hold

[Da Coach]

IDPH, Gov. Pritzker move basketball to higher risk category, puts winter season 'on hold'
https://www.wcia.com/sports/local-sp...rt-guidelines/

The move means there can be no contact practices or games. The IHSA was reportedly given 15 minutes notice prior to the governor's announcement. Pritzker stated that winter sports, including basketball, is not "cancelled" yet, just "on hold". The IHSA will have to make a decision soon on how to proceed.

https://twitter.com/michaelsobrien/status/1321201735852040193

[Da Coach]

News from Bradley regarding Covid-19.-

Bradley University sees low COVID-19 numbers among students, staff

https://www.centralillinoisproud.com/news/local-news/bradley-university-sees-low-covid-19-numbers-among-students-staff/

As of today, there have been a total of 347 positive tests at Bradley. The most recent positivity rate was very low- 1.45% (4 cases out of 275 tests).

The numbers are not as good at Illinois State.
From the NY Times, which tracks cases at US Universities-

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/covid-college-cases-tracker.html

The NY Times' numbers were last updated Oct. 22- as of that date, Bradley had reported 351 cases, while ISU had reported 1,438.

[KillerB]

IHSA defying governor
https://twitter.com/WCIA3Bret/status...42059434643457
Bret Beherns @WCIA3Bret
BREAKING: The IHSA is going directly against Gov. Pritzker's and IDPH guidelines putting the basketball season "on hold"Practices on Nov. 16, first games Nov. 30, following IHSA SMAC guidelines. As a part of the mitigation plan, masks will be worn by all players, coaches, refs

[Da Coach]

Haha.... the IHSA has given a big middle finger to Gov. Pritzker. I love it. The IHSA has the authority over all Illinois High School sports, not the state or the Governor. So the IHSA has ruled that basketball (both girls and boys) will go ahead with the schedule as planned (practice starts Nov. 16, games start Nov. 30), despite the attempt by Pritzker to put the sport on hold. The IHSA did move wrestling, the other sport deemed "high-risk" by the Governor, to the summer (April 19-June 26), and they allowed all other winter sports, which all fall in the "low-risk" category, to proceed as planned (boys swimming and diving, cheerleading, dance, boys and girls bowling and girls gymnastics).
https://www.ihsa.org/News-Media/Anno...-board-meeting

There is mounting evidence that participation in sports does not increase athletes' risk of getting or spreading Covid-19.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/high-sc...virus-covid-19

And infection fatality rates for high school-aged kids is microscopically small-


And there is also evidence that shutting down sports has serious negative effects on students' & athletes' mental health, depression, suicide, drug use, gang participation, and other issues. The absence of high school football in Illinois, while virtually every other Midwestern state is playing, has lead some families to move their kids out of state to play. And there is a real concern it could deprive kids of scholarship offers and other benefits that playing sports provide.

The Governor, the IDPH, and the local authorities still have the final say about fan attendance at games.

[KillerB]

Not arguing one way or the other, but I do not think the issue is the death rate among younger people. All agree is is very small.
I think the concerns are:
1-stopping the spread of the virus which younger people certainly can do.
2-the potential long-term impact.
I found this from the Mayo Clinic.
"The virus can damage the lungs, heart and brain, which increases the risk of long-term health problems."
"Organ damage caused by COVID-19


Organs that may be affected by COVID-19 include:

• Heart. Imaging tests taken months after recovery from COVID-19 have shown lasting damage to the heart muscle, even in people who experienced only mild COVID-19 symptoms. This may increase the risk of heart failure or other heart complications in the future.
• Lungs. The type of pneumonia often associated with COVID-19 can cause long-standing damage to the tiny air sacs (alveoli) in the lungs. The resulting scar tissue can lead to long-term breathing problems.
• Brain. Even in young people, COVID-19 can cause strokes, seizures and Guillain-Barre syndrome — a condition that causes temporary paralysis. COVID-19 may also increase the risk of developing Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease."

There have been a number of schools in Missouri playing football and some Covid hotspots traced to the games. Rockhurst (a KC powerhouse) i believe just canceled the rest of its season. Of course football and basketball are 2 very different sports.

[Da Coach]

Nobody is denying those things. I agree, Covid-19 is not a good thing. But if you read my post and the link I placed there regarding the study done by the University of Wisconsin (and there are a number of other similar studies), it is pretty clear that participating in sports does not cause the students to be infected or exposed any more than students who are not in athletics, nor is there any evidence of greater spread of the virus by playing sports.
So if the reason to shut down high school sports is for those reasons you listed, you are not actually accomplishing anything. In fact, the students are just as likely to get infected or spread the virus if the sports are shut down. But then there are other issues to deal with. It is recognized now that there is a far higher rate of depression, mental illness, suicides, drug and alcohol abuse, gang involvement, and numerous other social and behavioral problems.

Coronavirus pandemic may lead to 75,000 "deaths of despair" from suicide, drug and alcohol abuse, study says

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-deaths-suicides-drugs-alcohol-pandemic-75000/

[KillerB]

Interesting study and encouraging. I'm not sure how it squares up with information like this:

https://kdlmradio.com/news/local/minnesota-health-department-worried-about-sports-related-covid-spread

[Da Coach]

Those kinds of reports are concerning. But what the Wisconsin study suggests is that it's not specifically the sports that is causing the spread, and that all other activities those kids participate in, even the non-athletes, are causing the same numbers of cases. We know that if those kids aren't playing sports, they will still be getting together and doing other things and spreading Covid.
There are statistics that show that states that banned fall sports, like Illinois, are still seeing the rise in cases, as much or more than states that are allowing the sports.

So if we ban sports, you could make the argument that we should prohibit all other activities and lock people in their homes (that doesn't work either).

By the way, Illinois categorizes HS football as "high-risk" and used that to justify shutting it down this fall. "High-risk" is the category that Pritzker arbitrarily moved basketball to Tuesday to justify his action. Yet numerous other states have allowed high school football, and there have been only isolated cases, no widespread outbreaks reported associated with playing football, and none of the states playing football have reversed their decision and halted games.

No COVID-19 outbreaks with over 1,000 HS football games played
https://www.saturdaydownsouth.com/se...-games-played/

[Tommy]

I'm curious when people think we should let things go back to normal? Is there any indicator used that would dictate this? From what I can tell the death rate has become infinitesimal since testing ramped up (lower than the average flu), but it seems like as soon as that happened the press switched from talking about the death rate to the infection rate.
Being as we have never as a country had healthy people going to get tested for an illness, let alone sick people being tested multiple times to ensure they are clear to go back to work, just curious when exactly we can end all of this and get back to living our lives and what metric will be used to allow it. Would love to hear people's thoughts on that.

On the subject matter at hand, I say good for the IHSA for letting Pritzker know that he is over-reaching his authority.

I'll end with this quote from Thomas Jefferson: I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery.

[Da Coach]

I wish I could predict, Tommy. It's getting worse again. Chicago and the suburbs just had restaurants and bars closed to indoor dining, and with the colder weather prohibiting outdoor dining, it could get bad for many of them and their employees. Almost all of Illinois is seeing an increase in cases, and now hospitalizations and death numbers are starting to rise in Illinois and many states. Even nationally, the death rates are threatening to go back up. I think this could get worse before it gets better. So I hate to be a Debbie Downer, but I'm beginning to think we'll be lucky if we can get through the basketball season.

[KillerB]

Illinois today:
THE STATE RECORDED 6,363 NEW CORONAVIRUS CASES TODAY -- THAT'S THE HIGHEST EVER IN JUST ONE DAY.
THE 7-DAY POSITIVITY IS AT ITS HIGHEST LEVEL SINCE MAY 31ST.. AT 6-POINT-9 PERCENT. (this is a big stat the experts watch. 2 weeks ago it was in the mid to low fives)
THE STATE ALSO REPORTED THE MOST HOSPITALIZATIONS.. AND HIGHEST NUMBER OF PATIENTS IN I-C-U SINCE JUNE.
-those are not good indicators after the state had been doing well most of the summer compared to other states

[KillerB]

Now Pritzker apparently wants to move Basketball to the spring:
Michael O'Brien @michaelsobrien
1h
JUST IN: Gov. Pritzker says high school basketball will be moved into spring. This comes two days after Pritzker announced basketball was "on hold." chicago.suntimes.com/2020/10/29/21

[Da Coach]

Wow. Will the IHSA stick with their plan?
The comment at the end of the article by the IHSA spokesman Matt Troha seems to imply that they might be sticking with yesterday's plan. It also suggests there is still a disconnect between the governor and the IHSA-

“The IHSA has not received additional outreach from the Governor’s office or IDPH since Tuesday, and as a result, are not comfortable commenting,” IHSA spokesperson Matt Troha said in a statement. “Please refer to the IHSA press release from yesterday for the IHSA’s current winter schedule.”

[Dub]

Now Pritzker apparently wants to move Basketball to the spring:
Michael O'Brien @michaelsobrien
1h
JUST IN: Gov. Pritzker says high school basketball will be moved into spring. This comes two days after Pritzker announced basketball was "on hold." chicago.suntimes.com/2020/10/29/21

We’ve seen this with Pritzker before... when he gets “defied” he makes a wild change to the plan in order to make the planned “defiance” irrelevant. The reason is that the open defiance makes him look weak... therefore he tries to remove the feasibility of the defiance plan.

IHSA need to move forward. I’m becoming more and more convinced we need to protect our vulnerable and let the healthy go back to “normal” and build up immunity in the herd. No reason for high schoolers to live in fear... let it run through the population in a controlled burn like they said at the start of all this. That was plan A, remember?

If we can get an effective vaccine to our vulnerable by next spring, we should be in good shape.

[algotrader]

Immunity doesn't last long enough in order to get everyone infected in large enough numbers without completely overwhelming hospitals. Simply put, not enough bandwidth. Gotta wait for the vaccine. I mean its not that far off anyway. My concern is the nutso anti-vaxxers though. A lot of folks who are flat out saying they won't be getting it.