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Adam Silver,
Amin Elhassan,
COVID-19,
Jason Jackson,
NBA,
Rudy Gobert, which we write you can understand. Alright, happy reading.
It was surreal to watch in real time last Wednesday night as an NBA game, an NBA season, and then life as we know it disappeared before our eyes. I feel like we are all now living in an X-Files movie, but Mulder and Scully are not here to seek the truth.
So many questions, and so few answers.
I understand that as soon as one NBA player became infected with COVID-19 the league had to shut down, at least temporarily, to evaluate the situation. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver is being hailed as a visionary, but it is more honest to say that he is a realist. How can a season continue with possibly five or six teams under quarantine? Anyone with sense knew that as soon as one NBA player tested positive for COVID-19 the season had to be suspended.
I don't understand why ESPN was in such a rush to publicly announce the name of the infected player, possibly before he even had an opportunity to communicate this news to his family. It is OK to mention Rudy Gobert's name now, because he has gone public to talk about the situation, but that was not the case when his name was first broadcast by ESPN.
SIRIUS XM NBA Radio's Jason Jackson and Amin Elhassan--the former used to work for ESPN, while the latter is still employed by the network--had a thoughtful, in depth discussion of why it is meaningless (and, at times--like this time--harmful) for a media member to report something "first" as opposed to being both accurate, and also sensitive to larger issues. It was sufficient for ESPN to report that a player had tested positive. As Elhassan noted, the NBA and/or the player would have revealed the rest in short order. Elhassan pointed out a recent, and even worse, example of being "first" as opposed to being accurate, and being sensitive to larger issues: the initial "reporting" about the helicopter crash that took Kobe Bryant's life was a confused and confusing mixture of wrong-headed speculation pertaining to who exactly had perished. It was falsely reported that Bryant's former teammate Rick Fox was on the helicopter, and it was also falsely reported that more than one of Bryant's daughters were aboard. Being "first" and wrong is worse than meaningless. It is irresponsible, if not evil.
I understand that once the NBA suspends its season, most other sports organizations are going to follow suit.
I don't understand why Gobert's situation is not being studied more closely by medical professionals who are trying to figure out how to deal with COVID-19 (if Gobert's situation is being studied, I apologize for suggesting otherwise). The initial, breathless reporting--including referring to Gobert as "Patient Zero"--suggested that Gobert was going to singlehandedly infect, if not imperil, a large number of people, including the players and support staff from the Utah Jazz plus opposing players and other people with whom he came into contact after becoming infected. Much was made of Gobert intentionally touching reporters' microphones/recorders just two days before he tested positive; much less has been made of an interview given by a reporter covering the Jazz who stated that medical officials told all of the media members covering the Jazz that what Gobert did had a very low risk of transmitting COVID-19. That is not meant to suggest that what Gobert did was anything other than stupid, reckless and possibly dangerous, since he had no way to properly assess the potential consequences when he engaged in those actions. However, media coverage focusing incessantly on what Gobert did without providing any proper medical context to the actual risk is misleading at best, and panic-inducing at worst.
Presumably all of those people who came in close contact with Gobert have been tested, and it turns out that only one other person directly connected to Gobert has COVID-19: his teammate Donovan Mitchell (whose name I mention only because Mitchell has also gone public to discuss the situation). Note that even though there was a report that a fan who received an autograph from Gobert at a Utah Jazz game has COVID-19, medical officials have stated 1) that Gobert was not infected/contagious at the time he signed the autograph, and 2) that interaction was not likely to have transmitted the disease even if Gobert had been infected at that time.
I wear many hats--father, lawyer, basketball commentator, chess player--but I am not a medical doctor or an epidemiologist. I don't pretend to have any expertise about how contagious COVID-19 is, or how deadly it is. So, what follows are honest, sincere questions, with no subtext. If a medical doctor or epidemiologist reads these words, feel free to post a comment to enlighten me and my readers.
If COVID-19 is as contagious as it is depicted to be, and if Rudy Gobert had the kind of sustained, direct contact with so many people that one can reasonably assume that he had after he became contagious but before he was isolated, then why is there only one infection directly connected to him? Whole countries are being shut down, and millions of lives are being disrupted on the premise that this disease is highly contagious. More than one media outlet has reported that one person in New York singlehandedly infected over 100 people.
Shouldn't somebody with medical expertise be looking into why Gobert is not very contagious, and why this other person supposedly is so contagious? Do we not have all the facts? Did Gobert somehow infect more people than we know? That seems doubtful based on how many people connected to him have already been tested. Is the one person in New York possibly not responsible for infecting over 100 people? If Gobert only infected one person, but this other individual infected over 100 people, then what actionable knowledge can we gain from those two situations to limit the spread of this disease? Alternatively, if this other individual only infected one or two people, then other method(s) of disease transmission involving the rest of the folks incorrectly linked to that individual presumably would have implications for the effort to slow the spread of the disease.
Gobert felt well enough to play NBA basketball on the night that he tested positive. By all accounts, Donovan Mitchell is doing fine, too.
Are people who are younger than a certain age and reasonably healthy seriously at risk?
I understand the concepts of "flattening the curve," and the importance of minimizing how many people get sick so that the healthcare system is not overwhelmed--but shutting down the entire country will also have a serious impact on the economy, on mental health, and ultimately on physical health. An autopsy can prove if someone who died had COVID-19. An autopsy cannot prove that someone who died would have lived if not for the transformative disruptions of society that are increasing on a daily basis to mitigate the spread of a disease that we do not understand very well.
Is it possible that protectively isolating the elderly and the most vulnerable without shutting down the whole economy would lead to a better outcome, both in terms of disease mitigation, and the mitigation of other negative outcomes?
I don't know the answers to any of these questions--but I know that these are very important questions, and that they need to be answered intelligently not only to deal with this crisis, but to deal with whatever the next crisis will be.
I extend my deepest sympathy to all the family and friends of those who have died as a result of COVID-19, and to all those who are suffering as a result of the mass disruptions of society, and I hope that there are better days ahead for all of us as soon as possible.
That's the article: COVID-19, the NBA, and Unanswered Questions
You are now reading the article COVID-19, the NBA, and Unanswered Questions with link address https://wordentertainmen.blogspot.com/2020/03/covid-19-nba-and-unanswered-questions.html
It was surreal to watch in real time last Wednesday night as an NBA game, an NBA season, and then life as we know it disappeared before our eyes. I feel like we are all now living in an X-Files movie, but Mulder and Scully are not here to seek the truth.
So many questions, and so few answers.
I understand that as soon as one NBA player became infected with COVID-19 the league had to shut down, at least temporarily, to evaluate the situation. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver is being hailed as a visionary, but it is more honest to say that he is a realist. How can a season continue with possibly five or six teams under quarantine? Anyone with sense knew that as soon as one NBA player tested positive for COVID-19 the season had to be suspended.
I don't understand why ESPN was in such a rush to publicly announce the name of the infected player, possibly before he even had an opportunity to communicate this news to his family. It is OK to mention Rudy Gobert's name now, because he has gone public to talk about the situation, but that was not the case when his name was first broadcast by ESPN.
SIRIUS XM NBA Radio's Jason Jackson and Amin Elhassan--the former used to work for ESPN, while the latter is still employed by the network--had a thoughtful, in depth discussion of why it is meaningless (and, at times--like this time--harmful) for a media member to report something "first" as opposed to being both accurate, and also sensitive to larger issues. It was sufficient for ESPN to report that a player had tested positive. As Elhassan noted, the NBA and/or the player would have revealed the rest in short order. Elhassan pointed out a recent, and even worse, example of being "first" as opposed to being accurate, and being sensitive to larger issues: the initial "reporting" about the helicopter crash that took Kobe Bryant's life was a confused and confusing mixture of wrong-headed speculation pertaining to who exactly had perished. It was falsely reported that Bryant's former teammate Rick Fox was on the helicopter, and it was also falsely reported that more than one of Bryant's daughters were aboard. Being "first" and wrong is worse than meaningless. It is irresponsible, if not evil.
I understand that once the NBA suspends its season, most other sports organizations are going to follow suit.
I don't understand why Gobert's situation is not being studied more closely by medical professionals who are trying to figure out how to deal with COVID-19 (if Gobert's situation is being studied, I apologize for suggesting otherwise). The initial, breathless reporting--including referring to Gobert as "Patient Zero"--suggested that Gobert was going to singlehandedly infect, if not imperil, a large number of people, including the players and support staff from the Utah Jazz plus opposing players and other people with whom he came into contact after becoming infected. Much was made of Gobert intentionally touching reporters' microphones/recorders just two days before he tested positive; much less has been made of an interview given by a reporter covering the Jazz who stated that medical officials told all of the media members covering the Jazz that what Gobert did had a very low risk of transmitting COVID-19. That is not meant to suggest that what Gobert did was anything other than stupid, reckless and possibly dangerous, since he had no way to properly assess the potential consequences when he engaged in those actions. However, media coverage focusing incessantly on what Gobert did without providing any proper medical context to the actual risk is misleading at best, and panic-inducing at worst.
Presumably all of those people who came in close contact with Gobert have been tested, and it turns out that only one other person directly connected to Gobert has COVID-19: his teammate Donovan Mitchell (whose name I mention only because Mitchell has also gone public to discuss the situation). Note that even though there was a report that a fan who received an autograph from Gobert at a Utah Jazz game has COVID-19, medical officials have stated 1) that Gobert was not infected/contagious at the time he signed the autograph, and 2) that interaction was not likely to have transmitted the disease even if Gobert had been infected at that time.
I wear many hats--father, lawyer, basketball commentator, chess player--but I am not a medical doctor or an epidemiologist. I don't pretend to have any expertise about how contagious COVID-19 is, or how deadly it is. So, what follows are honest, sincere questions, with no subtext. If a medical doctor or epidemiologist reads these words, feel free to post a comment to enlighten me and my readers.
If COVID-19 is as contagious as it is depicted to be, and if Rudy Gobert had the kind of sustained, direct contact with so many people that one can reasonably assume that he had after he became contagious but before he was isolated, then why is there only one infection directly connected to him? Whole countries are being shut down, and millions of lives are being disrupted on the premise that this disease is highly contagious. More than one media outlet has reported that one person in New York singlehandedly infected over 100 people.
Shouldn't somebody with medical expertise be looking into why Gobert is not very contagious, and why this other person supposedly is so contagious? Do we not have all the facts? Did Gobert somehow infect more people than we know? That seems doubtful based on how many people connected to him have already been tested. Is the one person in New York possibly not responsible for infecting over 100 people? If Gobert only infected one person, but this other individual infected over 100 people, then what actionable knowledge can we gain from those two situations to limit the spread of this disease? Alternatively, if this other individual only infected one or two people, then other method(s) of disease transmission involving the rest of the folks incorrectly linked to that individual presumably would have implications for the effort to slow the spread of the disease.
Gobert felt well enough to play NBA basketball on the night that he tested positive. By all accounts, Donovan Mitchell is doing fine, too.
Are people who are younger than a certain age and reasonably healthy seriously at risk?
I understand the concepts of "flattening the curve," and the importance of minimizing how many people get sick so that the healthcare system is not overwhelmed--but shutting down the entire country will also have a serious impact on the economy, on mental health, and ultimately on physical health. An autopsy can prove if someone who died had COVID-19. An autopsy cannot prove that someone who died would have lived if not for the transformative disruptions of society that are increasing on a daily basis to mitigate the spread of a disease that we do not understand very well.
Is it possible that protectively isolating the elderly and the most vulnerable without shutting down the whole economy would lead to a better outcome, both in terms of disease mitigation, and the mitigation of other negative outcomes?
I don't know the answers to any of these questions--but I know that these are very important questions, and that they need to be answered intelligently not only to deal with this crisis, but to deal with whatever the next crisis will be.
I extend my deepest sympathy to all the family and friends of those who have died as a result of COVID-19, and to all those who are suffering as a result of the mass disruptions of society, and I hope that there are better days ahead for all of us as soon as possible.
That's the article: COVID-19, the NBA, and Unanswered Questions
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