News Article: Penn St. Doc: 30-35% COVID positive Big 10 athletes have Myocarditis, symptomatic or not
- Thread starter dtgreg
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A Supercomputer Analyzed Covid-19 — and an Interesting New Theory Has Emerged
A closer look at the Bradykinin hypothesis
elemental.medium.com
Interesting read on all the complications of COVID.
The story that started this thread is very wrong:
Penn State Health later clarified that the 30-35% figure pertaining to COVID-19-positive Big Ten athletes verbally shared with Dr. Wayne Sebastianelli by a colleague was actually published at the lower rate of 15%. He was unaware of that when he made his comments at the State College school board meeting, a spokesperson said.
Penn State Health later clarified that the 30-35% figure pertaining to COVID-19-positive Big Ten athletes verbally shared with Dr. Wayne Sebastianelli by a colleague was actually published at the lower rate of 15%. He was unaware of that when he made his comments at the State College school board meeting, a spokesperson said.
I was REALLY surprised and shocked at the 33% figure. Given the NFL track record on concussions, I'm not believing 0% either.
I think he should have kept quiet about it until he knew the actual numbers. Too public and too important to screw the pooch on this.
I think that he released the numbers yesterday on purpose, to derail the B1G's attempt to restart the season. It was clearly rushed, and why rush? He knew that the B1G was supposed to meet today to discuss restarting the season and they canceled the meeting after this came out.
I agree. I guess even doctors are not immune to the "I heard..." bug.
It is pretty important that people verify the facts before speaking off the cuff.
The B1G could also be more forthcoming/transparent. That is a bigger problem on multiple levels than one doctor making an apparently honest (but important) mistake.
I know you're the boss but I disagree. Overblown fears about myocarditis risk were promulgated to give B1G and Pac 12 presidents cover for banning Fall sports. The intentional spreading of false information to support a prejudiced agenda is not what I would characterize as an "apparently honest[ ] mistake". There are sensible arguments to be made that universities should have no in person learning during the pandemic. That's not my position but the arguments are reasonable. But allowing students to congregate at universities in classrooms, dorms, frats and bars while banning outdoor athletic activities...as Spock would have said: "That is not logical."
That is where the lack of transparency becomes problematic. We assume that they stopped play because of this, but they never said so. They have not said much of anything. Was it false information? Was it something else? We just don't know.
Accusing two whole conference administrations (presidents, ADs, and medical personnel) of a knowing lie adversely affecting thousands and costing hundreds of millions (maybe over a billion) of dollars is pretty serious stuff.
There's no doubt the "30-35%" number is wrong. But where is the evidence that it was intentionally manufactured and promulgated, despite knowledge that it was wrong, to give air cover to 26 college presidents?
FWIW, I think it was a rush to judgment born of the breathless "sky is falling" outlook that prevailed at the time. But I don't think it was intentional. Still, even if I'm wrong and it was intentionally put out there, now that the cover is blown, what else is stopping them from playing?
The Pac-12 and BIG have done this whole thing entirely differently. The Pac-12 said the main issue was testing. When the rapid saliva test came out, they said that changed things, and it's now looking like they'll start playing when that testing is available in the quantities needed to service all football programs in the whole conference, essentially every day.
The BIG has been neither logical nor illogical. They've been stonewalling. The conference commissioner got busted on some inaccurate statements early on when he trumpeted unanimity among the 14 schools -- which clearly didn't exist. But they really haven't said anything of substance since the announcement that they were postponing fall sports until at least the spring.
I agree that the BIG should be more forthcoming. But to get back to the original question -- where is the evidence that 26 college presidents cooperated in a campaign of dissembling, and they and their staffs (you're now talking about a few hundred individuals) have managed to keep a lid on information that would distinguish a mistake from a lie?
Where is your evidence that it was an "honest" mistake? You may be misstating some facts. Not all of the 26 presidents agreed. Furthermore, I never said that several hundred individuals lied and cooperated in some campaign of disinformation. I am not going to discuss politics here. But if you take a look at the governors of Michigan, California, Oregon, Washington, Wisconsin and Minnesota (to name a few) do you think there was ever any chance they were going to allow football? Do you think it's possible that the presidents of some state universities were coerced and seized upon the myocarditis baloney to gain cover? Not speaking politically, of course.
The Dr. was told in a meeting that the number was 30-35%. It was later reduced to 15%, but he wasn't aware of that. He should have gotten confirmation of a number that would strike most laymen (me, anyway) as way high. But he didn't. Sounds like a mistake, not an intentional lie to me.
I don't want to get political, either. In fact, I don't think it's a political discussion. It's really about the implausibility of having a conspiracy that big, and nobody leaking anything remotely concrete.
Regarding air cover for the presidents -- you said the inaccurate information was intentionally promulgated to provide air cover to the Pac 12 and BIG presidents. There are 26 of them. They each have a number of high-level staffers -- academic, financial, athletic, development, alumni and PR, and probably multiple representatives from each -- that would have been involved in the decision not to play. If each of them has only seven that had input into the decision not to play (and I promise it was more than that), that's 200 people.
So for it to be an intentional lie and my numbers to be wrong
-- Somebody would have to have concocted the bad information, knowing that it was wrong
-- But none of the 26 presidents, nor anyone on their staffs, had any inking that their air cover was manufactured (wink, wink).
-- So the presidents and their staffs would have unwittingly relied on the bad info, and continued to do so after the real number came out. Or maybe they were strong-armed into doing so.
Yet nobody anywhere has produced any evidence of an intentional lie.
For this to be intentional, the required conspiracy is just too big. With all the egos, strutting, posturing and ladder-climbing that goes on at any major university, it's about impossible for any two of those guys to keep a secret, let alone the number that would be necessary to pull it off.
Late Edit re: Confirmation Bias. I do confess a bias against conspiracy theories that require more than two people to keep a secret. Even then, they need to be happily married and/or have some other reason to keep mouths shut. Five? Not bloody likely. You get into two digits, and it’s no longer controllable. Three figures? Impossible.
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Are you saying that I'm wearing a tin foil hat? I'm an ER doctor in my sixth decade and I'm working shifts in a city with an 11% positive rate but 19 year old athletes are at risk of a heart attack while playing field hockey? You are absolutely right. I'm just a conspiracy nut who knows nothing about SARS2 COVID 19. Of course a bunch of college presidents are going to accept unsubstantiated musings from a single physician and blithely deny their universities tens of millions in revenues without seeking verification. If you believe that one political party hopes to gain power by increasing the misery index for as many Americans as possible then you are just a paranoid wing nut. Where did I put the Reynolds wrap?Who’s wearing the tin foil hat?
Edit: Rhetorical and probably unnecessary.
I never said that 100-200 people could keep a secret. You are setting up 100-200 straw men and knocking them down. What I'm saying is that many states were not going to allow football before November 3 for the same reason SF doesn't allow people to see their hair dresser and you can't eat inside a NYC restaurant even when the tables are 10 feet apart. The leaders of certain states are leveraging misery to create voter discontent with the status quo. College presidents in many states were told this in no uncertain terms by their governors. For example, the University of Michigan president found it politically easier to come up with a medical reason that sounded really scary (myocarditis, which was seen on MRI scans of people over 50 and occurs with many viruses) than saying he was told by his governor that she would not allow football. Ditto for the majority of other B1G and Pac12 presidents. When you are on a BOD (I've been on one corporate board and two state boards) you are supposed to support the majority decision, not say it was 7 to 5 vote and you still oppose. Either you send all the students home for distance learning (like Harvard and Cal Sate San Jose) or you allow football. The current situation is illogical and there are plenty of players and players' parents that agree with me 100%.
It seems we can't have a single thread on the FB board on COVID-19 without it being completely derailed by politics.
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