Coronavirus

Opinion: Mandatory College Football Practices at Time of Pandemic are Nuts

Published

4 years ago

July 2, 2020

The NCAA has just ruled that mandatory football practices can begin in July, anticipating a full season of college football. This is nuts. The pandemic isn’t going away; it’s surging in more than 29 states, with seven reporting new records for cases in a day. States that opened early without adequate safeguards — Texas, Florida, Arizona — now face a spread of the pandemic that may soon exhaust the supply of hospital beds. Deaths are now over 125,000. Increasing numbers of young people are contracting the disease, presumably because of the lack of social distancing, the scorn for masks that has accompanied the reopening in many states — and, of course, in the White House itself.

The experience of Texas and Florida and Arizona in reopening suggests that it may not even be safe to reopen college campuses with thousands of students gathering together in dorms, classes, parties and bars, much less begin practices on a football field.

In the so-called “voluntary workouts” that some schools began in June, dozens of players have already tested positive. UNLV suspending on-campus workouts when four athletes tested positive for the virus. Texas Tech reports 23 players have tested positive; Clemson reports 37 football players and 47 cases in all among athletes. And now the NCAA says it’s time to open mandatory workouts.

Football is a physical contact sport. The coronavirus is transmittable through respiratory droplets. If an infected athlete wipes his nose or mouth between plays or takes out his mouth guard, he has the virus on his hands that will be in repeated contact with other players. Does anyone doubt that the virus will spread like wildfire once mandatory camps and contact drills begin?

To discount this reality, we hear a lot of gibberish. The athletes will be tested regularly, we’re told — and isolated, traced and quarantined if they have the disease. How regularly? Well, daily would be optimal — that is what wealthy professional teams are talking about doing — but few if any universities can afford that. So some will test weekly; some only if an athlete exhibits symptoms, even though young people are often asymptomatic. No wonder Ohio State University is forcing players and their parents to sign an “acknowledgment of risk waiver.”

The university is prepared to risk the lives of the players, but not open itself up to liability.

Don’t worry, we’re told, “college athletes, in general, are a young, healthy population in relation to the general public. They are usually well-equipped to fight off the infection physically unscathed.” Usually. But we’re learning that even those who survive the virus are often scarred with weak lungs or bad hearts.

The watchword, we’re told, is “flexibility.” Second- and third-string players have to be ready to step in at any time. “This scenario,” one doctor wrote, would be analogous to spraining an ankle or pulling a hamstring during warmups and suddenly needing to sit out the next one to three games.”

No, a sprained ankle does not put a life at risk. A pulled hamstring is painful but not as lasting as a damaged lung or weakened heart. Sprained ankles and pulled hamstrings aren’t contagious. We’re not talking about “flexibility,” we’re talking about irresponsibility.

Many of the football players in Division One schools come from low-income families. Many depend on their scholarship to pay for their schooling. Now they are asked to risk their lives for their sport.

I believe that this college football season should be postponed. It can’t be played in a “bubble,” as Dr. Anthony Fauci suggests. And we’ve already got vivid proof of how vulnerable the players are to the virus.

But if the NCAA and the universities are intent on playing despite the risk — driven no doubt by the billions of dollars at risk if the season is called off — they should at the very minimum give the players and their parents a real choice. Every player should be given the choice of whether to play or not, with their scholarship sustained no matter what decision they make. Every player and their families should be guaranteed free health care if they contract the virus. No player should be extorted to put his or her life at risk in order to get the education that they have earned.

In this time of Black Lives Matter protests, the lives of these young athletes — Black, white, brown and yellow, male and female, must matter. If the NCAA isn’t responsible enough to suspend the season, it should at the very least require that every athlete be given a choice on whether to take the risk, without losing the scholarship that has been promised to them.

Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr.

Posts by Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr.

Bay Area

Authorities Warn: There’s a COVID Surge in California

According to data estimates by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the coronavirus in California’s wastewater has spiked for eight consecutive weeks. Hospitalizations and emergency room visits have also increased since the rise of the new subvariants. Over the last month, Los Angeles County experienced an average of 389 hospital patients per day that tested positive for the coronavirus. The FLiRT subvariants such as KP.3.1.1. Made up over 2% of coronavirus samples nationwide, an increase of more than 7% last month.

Published

3 months ago

August 17, 2024

Oakland Post

Photo provided by California Black Media.

By Bo Tefu, California Black Media

California is experiencing a COVID-19 surge this summer, experts warn, as numbers of infections increased for the third month this year.

State public health authorities attribute the summer COVID surge to more infectious subvariants that have emerged as the coronavirus evolves.

Dr. Elizabeth Hudson, regional chief of infectious disease at Kaiser Permanente Southern California, stated that subvariants of COVID-19 called FLiRT increased in recent months, particularly one named KP.3.1.1 that has become the most common strain in the country.

Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious diseases expert at UC San Francisco, said that the subvariant KP.3.1.1 seems most adept at transmission.

“The subvariant is the one that people think will continue to take over, not only in the United States, but … around the world,” Chin-Hong said.

The majority of the people who tested positive for COVID-19 complained of a sore throat and a heavy cough. Risk factors that can increase the illness include age, underlying health issues, and vaccine dosage.

Health experts stated that the demand for the COVID-19 vaccine has increased in Northern California. However, people are having a hard time getting the vaccine due to the increasing number of cases.

Oakland Post

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California Black Media

Gov. Newsom and Gov. DeSantis Go Head-to-Head in Nationally Televised Debate

Conservative Fox News personality Sean Hannity moderated the duel, during which the TV pundit, more than once, injected his opinion, and appeared to be providing subtle assists to DeSantis. As the debate progressed, it was clear that opinions about each topic discussed was representative of the philosophical and political chasm that divides liberal and conservative America, and a preview of campaign mudslinging that is bound to intensify as the 2024 presidential campaign ensues.

Published

11 months ago

December 10, 2023

Oakland Post

The debate between Gov. Gavin Newsom and Gov. Ron DeSantis was moderated by Fox News personality Sean Hannity. California Black Media image.

By California Black Media

In an intense, 95-minute-plus televised faceoff between California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Nov. 30, the men traded jabs and putdowns, defended their respective gubernatorial records, disagreed sharply on how to solve the country’s most pressing problems, and expressed clashing views on the performance of the Biden-Harris administration.

Conservative Fox News personality Sean Hannity moderated the duel, during which the TV pundit, more than once, injected his opinion, and appeared to be providing subtle assists to DeSantis.

As the debate progressed, it was clear that opinions about each topic discussed was representative of the philosophical and political chasm that divides liberal and conservative America, and a preview of campaign mudslinging that is bound to intensify as the 2024 presidential campaign ensues.

“I’ll tell you why I’m here,” Newsom said. “I’m here to tell the truth about the Biden-Harris record and also compare and contrast Ron DeSantis’ record and the Republican Party’s record” with that of California.

DeSantis blasted Newsom’s management of the COVID-19 crisis and criticized Newsom for prevalent crime, homelessness and deteriorating social conditions in California cities.

“You have the freedom to defecate in public in California,” DeSantis said. “You have the freedom to pitch a tent on Sunset Boulevard. You have the freedom to create a homeless encampment under a freeway and even light it on fire. They’re not the freedoms our founding fathers envisioned.”

Newsom took a jab at DeSantis’ presidential candidacy, predicting that the Florida Governor would be endorsing GOP frontrunner Donald Trump soon.

“There’s one thing we have in common,” Newsom said. “Neither of us will be the nominee for our party in 2024.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

BayCityNews

FDA Updates Approval of Pfizer Booster Vaccine for Children Under 5

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration updated its approval Tuesday of the Pfizer-BioNTech booster vaccine, making it available to some children under age 5. Before this update, children under 5 were not eligible for COVID-19 booster shots. Instead, they received three doses of the regular vaccine.

Published

2 years ago

March 22, 2023

Oakland Post

As of December 2022, children age 4 and younger who have not been vaccinated receive the omicron variant-specific booster vaccine as the third dose in their primary vaccine series, following two doses of the original Pfizer vaccine.

By Eli Walsh
Bay City News

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration updated its approval Tuesday of the Pfizer-BioNTech booster vaccine, making it available to some children under age 5.

Before this update, children under 5 were not eligible for COVID-19 booster shots. Instead, they received three doses of the regular vaccine.

However, children in that age range who completed their initial vaccination series before December 2022 only received three doses of the original Pfizer vaccine, and are less protected against more infectious variants of the virus as a result.

FDA officials updated the vaccine’s emergency use authorization Tuesday to allow those children who only received the original Pfizer COVID vaccine to receive one dose of the bivalent booster if it has been at least two months since they completed their initial series.

Other children under age 5 are not eligible for the booster, although everyone age 5 and up is eligible for a booster.

“Currently available data show that vaccination remains the best defense against severe disease, hospitalization and death caused by COVID-19 across all age groups, and we encourage all eligible individuals to make sure that their vaccinations are up to date with a bivalent COVID-19 vaccine,” said Dr. Peter Marks, the director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research.

Clinical data has found that both the original Pfizer vaccine and the booster vaccine that targets the omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 are safe for everyone aged 6 months and up and effective at preventing the worst outcomes of COVID infection, including serious illness and death.

COVID vaccines are available at primary care providers, retail pharmacies and some facilities operated by local health departments.

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