Testing protocols, yes. Unreliable testing protocols, no.

Rice. SMH.

(12-03-2020 06:05 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(12-03-2020 06:03 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  

(12-03-2020 05:39 PM)illiniowl Wrote:  I understand how football is played, thanks. Nevertheless, the fact remains that there has been essentially no proven transmission of the virus in the various fields of play (football, running, etc.). The generally accepted standard for considering oneself "exposed" is spending 15 continuous minutes in close quarters -- indoors, mind you. Is it literally impossible that it could happen in a football game (or a XC race, or a soccer match, etc.)? Perhaps not, but the data show that the probability is not meaningful in any rational, statistical sense. Literal impossibility is an irrational standard to construct policy around, and generally we don't, but with COVID, policymaking has at many times seemed geared more toward appeasing neurotic fears or trying to give the appearance of "doing something, anything" rather than being more soberly and scientifically calibrated.

Santa Clara County's "experts" have decreed in their incontestable wisdom that all contact sports must cease in the name of public health. The 49ers will now play in Arizona for the next 2 weeks. To my knowledge, football isn't played any differently in Arizona. So the Niners are quite literally flaunting "expert" advice, are openly and notoriously practicing activity officially deemed an unacceptable threat to the public health, and then they expect to blithely go back to CA and mingle with the populace? If the County's banning of contact sports is truly necessary and not just kabuki theater, shouldn't there be outrage at what the Niners are doing?

Outstanding response.

So we don’t need to be doing any of these testing protocols? I had assumed games were being canceled because of risk of transmission outside of the program, not because teams were worried about spreading it internally during game day, when they spend far more time together outside of game day.

Who said anything about not doing any testing?? Nobody of course.... and none of what you said applies at all to the 49'ers situation. That's just as Illini said... Santa Clara saying 'its too dangerous' and the 49'ers defying them saying... we're going to do it anyway, just not here. It is no less risky in Arizona than in Santa Clara.

If the UTEP players get COVID, they most likely got it from other UTEP players in practice, meetings, on planes or busses etc... or from other students. Same with Rice players. The chances that they transmit them from UTEP to Rice is pretty low... and the UTEP kids had already traveled to Houston, stayed in a hotel, had their meetings etc etc etc. The ONLY thing that didn't happen was perhaps the lowest risk (in terms of infection) part of their entire trip to and from.... the game itself. If you didn't mean that they might pass it during the game, then what difference does it make to the Rice game situation?

Perhaps the better idea is to test kids before they travel... and not let any suspected infections travel with the rest of the team, unless they 'clear' the next day.

(12-03-2020 10:02 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  

(12-03-2020 06:05 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(12-03-2020 06:03 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  

(12-03-2020 05:39 PM)illiniowl Wrote:  I understand how football is played, thanks. Nevertheless, the fact remains that there has been essentially no proven transmission of the virus in the various fields of play (football, running, etc.). The generally accepted standard for considering oneself "exposed" is spending 15 continuous minutes in close quarters -- indoors, mind you. Is it literally impossible that it could happen in a football game (or a XC race, or a soccer match, etc.)? Perhaps not, but the data show that the probability is not meaningful in any rational, statistical sense. Literal impossibility is an irrational standard to construct policy around, and generally we don't, but with COVID, policymaking has at many times seemed geared more toward appeasing neurotic fears or trying to give the appearance of "doing something, anything" rather than being more soberly and scientifically calibrated.

Santa Clara County's "experts" have decreed in their incontestable wisdom that all contact sports must cease in the name of public health. The 49ers will now play in Arizona for the next 2 weeks. To my knowledge, football isn't played any differently in Arizona. So the Niners are quite literally flaunting "expert" advice, are openly and notoriously practicing activity officially deemed an unacceptable threat to the public health, and then they expect to blithely go back to CA and mingle with the populace? If the County's banning of contact sports is truly necessary and not just kabuki theater, shouldn't there be outrage at what the Niners are doing?

Outstanding response.

So we don’t need to be doing any of these testing protocols? I had assumed games were being canceled because of risk of transmission outside of the program, not because teams were worried about spreading it internally during game day, when they spend far more time together outside of game day.

Who said anything about not doing any testing?? Nobody of course.... and none of what you said applies at all to the 49'ers situation. That's just as Illini said... Santa Clara saying 'its too dangerous' and the 49'ers defying them saying... we're going to do it anyway, just not here. It is no less risky in Arizona than in Santa Clara.

If the UTEP players get COVID, they most likely got it from other UTEP players in practice, meetings, on planes or busses etc... or from other students. Same with Rice players. The chances that they transmit them from UTEP to Rice is pretty low... and the UTEP kids had already traveled to Houston, stayed in a hotel, had their meetings etc etc etc. The ONLY thing that didn't happen was perhaps the lowest risk (in terms of infection) part of their entire trip to and from.... the game itself. If you didn't mean that they might pass it during the game, then what difference does it make to the Rice game situation?

Perhaps the better idea is to test kids before they travel... and not let any suspected infections travel with the rest of the team, unless they 'clear' the next day.

The response about testing was to Illini’s comments on Rice-UTEP (it was unrelated to the NFL sidebar).

The original comment indicated that spread between teams wasn’t an issue to be concerned with. If that is truly the case, why does Rice care about cases on UTEP’s team? Support staff could easily wear proper PPE, whereas student athletes can’t. Also, logically, the game of football requires incredibly close, repeated contact, such that there is not such a low probability of spread if someone is infected and playing in the trenches. But I am basing that of logic and not studies - and I’ve not been able to find any to back up either stance.

While playing may be the lowest risk activity for spread (as compared to these other activities), I am arguing that it is not zero risk, and it is the riskiest activity that a UTEP-Rice player combo may engage in (which you seem to agree with). So it creates the best vector for the virus to jump between students (hence Rice requiring UTEP to take a PCR test). If Rice didn’t care about this pathway, they wouldn’t have tested UTEP because it offers them no benefit.

The testing protocol UTEP followed did involved testing before traveling. It seems that, like most programs, they test multiple times per week. Rice asked them to do a PCR test upon arrival as a precaution, which flagged the positive. Then follow up tests had false positives.

(12-03-2020 06:16 PM)Ourland Wrote:  Testing protocols, yes. Unreliable testing protocols, no.

Rice. SMH.

Agreed - scrap the antigen, or make sure a positive is followed up with a PCR (assuming false negatives occur at a much lower rate with the antigen test).

(12-03-2020 06:03 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  

(12-03-2020 05:39 PM)illiniowl Wrote:  I understand how football is played, thanks. Nevertheless, the fact remains that there has been essentially no proven transmission of the virus in the various fields of play (football, running, etc.). The generally accepted standard for considering oneself "exposed" is spending 15 continuous minutes in close quarters -- indoors, mind you. Is it literally impossible that it could happen in a football game (or a XC race, or a soccer match, etc.)? Perhaps not, but the data show that the probability is not meaningful in any rational, statistical sense. Literal impossibility is an irrational standard to construct policy around, and generally we don't, but with COVID, policymaking has at many times seemed geared more toward appeasing neurotic fears or trying to give the appearance of "doing something, anything" rather than being more soberly and scientifically calibrated.

Santa Clara County's "experts" have decreed in their incontestable wisdom that all contact sports must cease in the name of public health. The 49ers will now play in Arizona for the next 2 weeks. To my knowledge, football isn't played any differently in Arizona. So the Niners are quite literally flaunting "expert" advice, are openly and notoriously practicing activity officially deemed an unacceptable threat to the public health, and then they expect to blithely go back to CA and mingle with the populace? If the County's banning of contact sports is truly necessary and not just kabuki theater, shouldn't there be outrage at what the Niners are doing?

Outstanding response.

It is almost like we need some federal leadership that is lacking so that the response amongst states could be more effective and coordinated.

It is almost like this Rice/UTEP thread has gone off the rails (or is dangerously close to it) and further discussions are probably best left for the quad.

(12-04-2020 01:26 AM)mrbig Wrote:  

(12-03-2020 06:03 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  

(12-03-2020 05:39 PM)illiniowl Wrote:  I understand how football is played, thanks. Nevertheless, the fact remains that there has been essentially no proven transmission of the virus in the various fields of play (football, running, etc.). The generally accepted standard for considering oneself "exposed" is spending 15 continuous minutes in close quarters -- indoors, mind you. Is it literally impossible that it could happen in a football game (or a XC race, or a soccer match, etc.)? Perhaps not, but the data show that the probability is not meaningful in any rational, statistical sense. Literal impossibility is an irrational standard to construct policy around, and generally we don't, but with COVID, policymaking has at many times seemed geared more toward appeasing neurotic fears or trying to give the appearance of "doing something, anything" rather than being more soberly and scientifically calibrated.

Santa Clara County's "experts" have decreed in their incontestable wisdom that all contact sports must cease in the name of public health. The 49ers will now play in Arizona for the next 2 weeks. To my knowledge, football isn't played any differently in Arizona. So the Niners are quite literally flaunting "expert" advice, are openly and notoriously practicing activity officially deemed an unacceptable threat to the public health, and then they expect to blithely go back to CA and mingle with the populace? If the County's banning of contact sports is truly necessary and not just kabuki theater, shouldn't there be outrage at what the Niners are doing?

Outstanding response.

It is almost like we need some federal leadership that is lacking so that the response amongst states could be more effective and coordinated.

It is almost like this Rice/UTEP thread has gone off the rails (or is dangerously close to it) and further discussions are probably best left for the quad.

um yeah....

Federal leadership...the answer to everything.

(12-03-2020 11:02 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(12-03-2020 10:02 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  

(12-03-2020 06:05 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(12-03-2020 06:03 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  

(12-03-2020 05:39 PM)illiniowl Wrote:  I understand how football is played, thanks. Nevertheless, the fact remains that there has been essentially no proven transmission of the virus in the various fields of play (football, running, etc.). The generally accepted standard for considering oneself "exposed" is spending 15 continuous minutes in close quarters -- indoors, mind you. Is it literally impossible that it could happen in a football game (or a XC race, or a soccer match, etc.)? Perhaps not, but the data show that the probability is not meaningful in any rational, statistical sense. Literal impossibility is an irrational standard to construct policy around, and generally we don't, but with COVID, policymaking has at many times seemed geared more toward appeasing neurotic fears or trying to give the appearance of "doing something, anything" rather than being more soberly and scientifically calibrated.

Santa Clara County's "experts" have decreed in their incontestable wisdom that all contact sports must cease in the name of public health. The 49ers will now play in Arizona for the next 2 weeks. To my knowledge, football isn't played any differently in Arizona. So the Niners are quite literally flaunting "expert" advice, are openly and notoriously practicing activity officially deemed an unacceptable threat to the public health, and then they expect to blithely go back to CA and mingle with the populace? If the County's banning of contact sports is truly necessary and not just kabuki theater, shouldn't there be outrage at what the Niners are doing?

Outstanding response.

So we don’t need to be doing any of these testing protocols? I had assumed games were being canceled because of risk of transmission outside of the program, not because teams were worried about spreading it internally during game day, when they spend far more time together outside of game day.

Who said anything about not doing any testing?? Nobody of course.... and none of what you said applies at all to the 49'ers situation. That's just as Illini said... Santa Clara saying 'its too dangerous' and the 49'ers defying them saying... we're going to do it anyway, just not here. It is no less risky in Arizona than in Santa Clara.

If the UTEP players get COVID, they most likely got it from other UTEP players in practice, meetings, on planes or busses etc... or from other students. Same with Rice players. The chances that they transmit them from UTEP to Rice is pretty low... and the UTEP kids had already traveled to Houston, stayed in a hotel, had their meetings etc etc etc. The ONLY thing that didn't happen was perhaps the lowest risk (in terms of infection) part of their entire trip to and from.... the game itself. If you didn't mean that they might pass it during the game, then what difference does it make to the Rice game situation?

Perhaps the better idea is to test kids before they travel... and not let any suspected infections travel with the rest of the team, unless they 'clear' the next day.

The response about testing was to Illini’s comments on Rice-UTEP (it was unrelated to the NFL sidebar).

The original comment indicated that spread between teams wasn’t an issue to be concerned with. If that is truly the case, why does Rice care about cases on UTEP’s team? Support staff could easily wear proper PPE, whereas student athletes can’t. Also, logically, the game of football requires incredibly close, repeated contact, such that there is not such a low probability of spread if someone is infected and playing in the trenches. But I am basing that of logic and not studies - and I’ve not been able to find any to back up either stance.

While playing may be the lowest risk activity for spread (as compared to these other activities), I am arguing that it is not zero risk, and it is the riskiest activity that a UTEP-Rice player combo may engage in (which you seem to agree with). So it creates the best vector for the virus to jump between students (hence Rice requiring UTEP to take a PCR test). If Rice didn’t care about this pathway, they wouldn’t have tested UTEP because it offers them no benefit.

The testing protocol UTEP followed did involved testing before traveling. It seems that, like most programs, they test multiple times per week. Rice asked them to do a PCR test upon arrival as a precaution, which flagged the positive. Then follow up tests had false positives.

Why does Rice care about doing one last final test of visiting players? You answered your own question. The decision makers are irrationally fixated on the idea that the possibility of transmission between players on opposite teams during play has not been shown to be a perfect zero, even though all available data -- of which there is an overwhelming amount, many months into this pandemic -- shows that the possibility is very nearly zero.

Your nonscientific huffing and puffing about linemen huffing and puffing on each other sounds scary, but a virologist would not describe this as a viable scenario for transmission. It is, perhaps not light years away, but still miles away from the indoors + 15 minutes + <6 feet standard for determining when one may reasonably consider oneself exposed (and surely that standard has ample margin for error baked in). Notre Dame played South Florida earlier this year with 39 players who it was later determined had caught the virus between their last test and the game -- not one USF player caught the virus in the game. And there has been no documented instance of inter- (not intra-) team transmission of the virus.

Bottom line is that insisting on an above-and-beyond policy that can lead to canceling games on game day despite a team having met all accepted protocols prior to showing up is not scientifically justified and is going too far.

To be sure, Rice is not alone in constructing policies with an unreasonable overabundance of caution. It is most certainly of a piece with what has gone on in this country in many areas.

(12-04-2020 09:40 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Federal leadership...the answer to everything.

No ... but it is the answer to some things, likely including the answer to different states and localities implementing wildly variant responses to covid, some of which are way to strict and some of which are way to lenient for the circumstances prevented, and some of which can be skirted by temporarily locating to a neighboring state/locality.

If Rice's Engineering departments and social science departments tried in implement wildly different restrictions for entering their buildings, I think it would make sense for Rice University to step in and provide some guidance/oversight. Just like it probably would have made more sense for CUSA to implement conference-wide requirements and not allowed any specific athletic program to go rogue and require more or less (unless the additional requirements were required under federal, state, or local government).

(12-04-2020 12:16 PM)illiniowl Wrote:  Why does Rice care about doing one last final test of visiting players? You answered your own question. The decision makers are irrationally fixated on the idea that the possibility of transmission between players on opposite teams during play has not been shown to be a perfect zero, even though all available data -- of which there is an overwhelming amount, many months into this pandemic -- shows that the possibility is very nearly zero.

Your nonscientific huffing and puffing about linemen huffing and puffing on each other sounds scary, but a virologist would not describe this as a viable scenario for transmission. It is, perhaps not light years away, but still miles away from the indoors + 15 minutes + <6 feet standard for determining when one may reasonably consider oneself exposed (and surely that standard has ample margin for error baked in). Notre Dame played South Florida earlier this year with 39 players who it was later determined had caught the virus between their last test and the game -- not one USF player caught the virus in the game. And there has been no documented instance of inter- (not intra-) team transmission of the virus.

Bottom line is that insisting on an above-and-beyond policy that can lead to canceling games on game day despite a team having met all accepted protocols prior to showing up is not scientifically justified and is going too far.

To be sure, Rice is not alone in constructing policies with an unreasonable overabundance of caution. It is most certainly of a piece with what has gone on in this country in many areas.

I don't necessarily disagree with what seems to be your main point. But I'm not sure your Notre Dame / USF example really supports it. If most of the 39 players "caught" covid between their last test and the game (presumably at most 2 days), and most of those players caught it from a single event (a pregame meal, according to the article), then any of the players who "caught" covid at the team meal likely had very low viral loads during the game (essentially none, assuming the meal and game were on the same day) and most likely were not yet to the point they could have transmitted the virus to others in any setting.

(12-04-2020 12:24 PM)mrbig Wrote:  

(12-04-2020 12:16 PM)illiniowl Wrote:  Why does Rice care about doing one last final test of visiting players? You answered your own question. The decision makers are irrationally fixated on the idea that the possibility of transmission between players on opposite teams during play has not been shown to be a perfect zero, even though all available data -- of which there is an overwhelming amount, many months into this pandemic -- shows that the possibility is very nearly zero.

Your nonscientific huffing and puffing about linemen huffing and puffing on each other sounds scary, but a virologist would not describe this as a viable scenario for transmission. It is, perhaps not light years away, but still miles away from the indoors + 15 minutes + <6 feet standard for determining when one may reasonably consider oneself exposed (and surely that standard has ample margin for error baked in). Notre Dame played South Florida earlier this year with 39 players who it was later determined had caught the virus between their last test and the game -- not one USF player caught the virus in the game. And there has been no documented instance of inter- (not intra-) team transmission of the virus.

Bottom line is that insisting on an above-and-beyond policy that can lead to canceling games on game day despite a team having met all accepted protocols prior to showing up is not scientifically justified and is going too far.

To be sure, Rice is not alone in constructing policies with an unreasonable overabundance of caution. It is most certainly of a piece with what has gone on in this country in many areas.

I don't necessarily disagree with what seems to be your main point. But I'm not sure your Notre Dame / USF example really supports it. If most of the 39 players "caught" covid between their last test and the game (presumably at most 2 days), and most of those players caught it from a single event (a pregame meal, according to the article), then any of the players who "caught" covid at the team meal likely had very low viral loads during the game (essentially none, assuming the meal and game were on the same day) and most likely were not yet to the point they could have transmitted the virus to others in any setting.

ND-USF was not offered as conclusive evidence; the more compelling evidence is that there has been no documentation of transmission in play -- not in the NFL, NCAA, or HS. This University of Wisconsin study surveyed 30,000 athletes who had taken part in 16,000 practices and 4,000 games and found 1 case of transmission that could be linked even just to "participation" in sports, which does not necessarily mean contracting it in play from another team (could have been a pregame meal, or not following locker-room distancing protocol).

With that said, your point that any ND players who caught the virus in the short space between their last test and the game could not have been contagious during the game proves my point that Rice (and other schools) testing to see if any visiting players caught the virus in the short space since their last test is pointless.

(12-04-2020 12:56 PM)illiniowl Wrote:  

(12-04-2020 12:24 PM)mrbig Wrote:  

(12-04-2020 12:16 PM)illiniowl Wrote:  Why does Rice care about doing one last final test of visiting players? You answered your own question. The decision makers are irrationally fixated on the idea that the possibility of transmission between players on opposite teams during play has not been shown to be a perfect zero, even though all available data -- of which there is an overwhelming amount, many months into this pandemic -- shows that the possibility is very nearly zero.

Your nonscientific huffing and puffing about linemen huffing and puffing on each other sounds scary, but a virologist would not describe this as a viable scenario for transmission. It is, perhaps not light years away, but still miles away from the indoors + 15 minutes + <6 feet standard for determining when one may reasonably consider oneself exposed (and surely that standard has ample margin for error baked in). Notre Dame played South Florida earlier this year with 39 players who it was later determined had caught the virus between their last test and the game -- not one USF player caught the virus in the game. And there has been no documented instance of inter- (not intra-) team transmission of the virus.

Bottom line is that insisting on an above-and-beyond policy that can lead to canceling games on game day despite a team having met all accepted protocols prior to showing up is not scientifically justified and is going too far.

To be sure, Rice is not alone in constructing policies with an unreasonable overabundance of caution. It is most certainly of a piece with what has gone on in this country in many areas.

I don't necessarily disagree with what seems to be your main point. But I'm not sure your Notre Dame / USF example really supports it. If most of the 39 players "caught" covid between their last test and the game (presumably at most 2 days), and most of those players caught it from a single event (a pregame meal, according to the article), then any of the players who "caught" covid at the team meal likely had very low viral loads during the game (essentially none, assuming the meal and game were on the same day) and most likely were not yet to the point they could have transmitted the virus to others in any setting.

ND-USF was not offered as conclusive evidence; the more compelling evidence is that there has been no documentation of transmission in play -- not in the NFL, NCAA, or HS. This University of Wisconsin study surveyed 30,000 athletes who had taken part in 16,000 practices and 4,000 games and found 1 case of transmission that could be linked even just to "participation" in sports, which does not necessarily mean contracting it in play from another team (could have been a pregame meal, or not following locker-room distancing protocol).

With that said, your point that any ND players who caught the virus in the short space between their last test and the game could not have been contagious during the game proves my point that Rice (and other schools) testing to see if any visiting players caught the virus in the short space since their last test is pointless.

Is that really compelling evidence that there is no risk of transmission during sports? I ask because of this line:

Quote: All the schools reported they had a formal plan in place to reduce the risk of transmission, including monitoring for symptoms, temperature checks at home and on site, masks for staff and players off the field, social distancing, increased facility cleaning and staggered arrival and departure times for events.

It sounds more like there is little to no risk of transmission for programs that have a formal plan in play to reduce the risk of transmission. Perhaps there weren’t many players participating that were actively infectious?

That seems a bit too uncontrolled to say something more broadly about the risk of an infectious football player infecting someone on the other team.

It is certainly evidence to support what we’re currently doing - playing sports in a controlled manner with a risk reduction plan in place. But does it really support your position that an actively infectious player could play with no risk of infecting an opposing player?

(12-04-2020 01:26 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(12-04-2020 12:56 PM)illiniowl Wrote:  

(12-04-2020 12:24 PM)mrbig Wrote:  

(12-04-2020 12:16 PM)illiniowl Wrote:  Why does Rice care about doing one last final test of visiting players? You answered your own question. The decision makers are irrationally fixated on the idea that the possibility of transmission between players on opposite teams during play has not been shown to be a perfect zero, even though all available data -- of which there is an overwhelming amount, many months into this pandemic -- shows that the possibility is very nearly zero.

Your nonscientific huffing and puffing about linemen huffing and puffing on each other sounds scary, but a virologist would not describe this as a viable scenario for transmission. It is, perhaps not light years away, but still miles away from the indoors + 15 minutes + <6 feet standard for determining when one may reasonably consider oneself exposed (and surely that standard has ample margin for error baked in). Notre Dame played South Florida earlier this year with 39 players who it was later determined had caught the virus between their last test and the game -- not one USF player caught the virus in the game. And there has been no documented instance of inter- (not intra-) team transmission of the virus.

Bottom line is that insisting on an above-and-beyond policy that can lead to canceling games on game day despite a team having met all accepted protocols prior to showing up is not scientifically justified and is going too far.

To be sure, Rice is not alone in constructing policies with an unreasonable overabundance of caution. It is most certainly of a piece with what has gone on in this country in many areas.

I don't necessarily disagree with what seems to be your main point. But I'm not sure your Notre Dame / USF example really supports it. If most of the 39 players "caught" covid between their last test and the game (presumably at most 2 days), and most of those players caught it from a single event (a pregame meal, according to the article), then any of the players who "caught" covid at the team meal likely had very low viral loads during the game (essentially none, assuming the meal and game were on the same day) and most likely were not yet to the point they could have transmitted the virus to others in any setting.

ND-USF was not offered as conclusive evidence; the more compelling evidence is that there has been no documentation of transmission in play -- not in the NFL, NCAA, or HS. This University of Wisconsin study surveyed 30,000 athletes who had taken part in 16,000 practices and 4,000 games and found 1 case of transmission that could be linked even just to "participation" in sports, which does not necessarily mean contracting it in play from another team (could have been a pregame meal, or not following locker-room distancing protocol).

With that said, your point that any ND players who caught the virus in the short space between their last test and the game could not have been contagious during the game proves my point that Rice (and other schools) testing to see if any visiting players caught the virus in the short space since their last test is pointless.

Is that really compelling evidence that there is no risk of transmission during sports? I ask because of this line:

Quote: All the schools reported they had a formal plan in place to reduce the risk of transmission, including monitoring for symptoms, temperature checks at home and on site, masks for staff and players off the field, social distancing, increased facility cleaning and staggered arrival and departure times for events.

It sounds more like there is little to no risk of transmission for programs that have a formal plan in play to reduce the risk of transmission. Perhaps there weren’t many players participating that were actively infectious?

That seems a bit too uncontrolled to say something more broadly about the risk of an infectious football player infecting someone on the other team.

It is certainly evidence to support what we’re currently doing - playing sports in a controlled manner with a risk reduction plan in place. But does it really support your position that an actively infectious player could play with no risk of infecting an opposing player?

Well, it seems to me that as illiniowl said, it is >15 minutes of exposure <6 feet without masks that is the criteria for significant exposure. Therefore, I would say that 15 play clock eating drives running an option offense which increases close trench contact should be avoided.
Sorry, couldn't resist.

The point that illiniowl is making is that by adding an unnecessary test the day before the game, false positive results became a possibility. And this leads to ambiguity and consternation. Furthermore, the value of performing this test in preventing disease spread was nearly zero, ZERO. With the incubation period of the virus, a negative test in an asymptomatic player 2 days before a game would mean clinically that their state of infectivity is essentially zero and would remain so for the duration of the game. As mrbig stated, their viral load is not sufficiently high enough for them to be contagious. So, the risk of transmission would be....zero. And this would be true during a sustained option drive.
The viral load has to be of a sufficient level to propagate the virus and a negative PCR test pretty much insures that it isn't. Therefore, the risk of transmission is zero.

See, I know how to manage clinical evaluations. This leads to some of the problem with testing. It helps to understand what you are testing and what the test results really mean. When you have intelligent people trying to create a policy on medical management who aren't trained in medical management, you get these kinds of results. They will look at the tests as an absolute determination and they aren't. And in thinking they are absolute then more is better and more negative tests means less risk. So, you get a flawed policy that doesn't assess the condition clinically. Logically, it makes sense what Rice did. But it doesn't make sense from a medical standpoint.
I understand that they want to err on the side of caution. I tell patients that the only way to truly avoid something is to not do it. It is like playing the lottery. If you play, you most likely won't win but the only way to ensure you don't win is to not buy a ticket. This pretty much sums up the thinking of the administration. The only way to ensure the virus doesn't spread at Rice is to not play and the extra tests which offer no clinical benefit gives them an excuse to not to play.

It's my understanding that the Saturday morning test was not an "extra" test. Given the Thanksgiving holiday and the long travel day on Friday, UTEP elected to test on Saturday morning rather than earlier in the week. I think the conference protocol requires three tests per week and UTEP elected to have the third test on Saturday (probably at the request of Rice).

(12-04-2020 04:14 PM)Houston Owl 2 Wrote:  It's my understanding that the Saturday morning test was not an "extra" test. Given the Thanksgiving holiday and the long travel day on Friday, UTEP elected to test on Saturday morning rather than earlier in the week. I think the conference protocol requires three tests per week and UTEP elected to have the third test on Saturday (probably at the request of Rice).

Saturday tests were extra. Friday tests were not (but initiated by Rice request).

https://kvia.com/sports/2020/11/30/utep-...positives/

The third test would normally have been done in El Paso. UTEP was contacted by Rice in October to do the third test in Houston on Friday and because of Thanksgiving altering UTEP's normal pattern they agreed. One player tested positive and the rest of the players tested negative. Because one player tested positive, Rice asked a rapid test be done on Saturday morning and that is when 11 UTEP players tested positive (10 were false positives). So Saturday was an extra test based on Friday's test. So what we had clinically was 1 UTEP player that was contagious and should have been isolated and held out of the game and the other 10 were not contagious. Their viral load was not sufficient to be a problem. Granted, they could become contagious later but the 3x/week testing would catch that.
The result of all of this is that not only was the Rice/UTEP game cancelled unnecessarily but the UTEP/USM game got cancelled because it was a short week and the UTEP suspended all football activity until it got sorted out. None of the false positives in Houston went on to convert to a positive PCR test the following week.
So, the cascade effect of doing an unnecessary extra test snowballed into 2 game cancellations. UTEP could have done the tests in El Paso and left the one player at home. Rice could have requested an extra Friday PCR test on the UTEP players and if the results were the same, the 1 positive player would ave been left at home and the rest of the UTEP players would have tested negative and the Rice/UTEP game would have been played and the UTEP/USM game would not have been cancelled.
So yes, unnecessary testing lead to multiple cancelled games in the name of risk reduction when it didn't have to be this way. If it was truly managed in a medical decision making way, these games would have been played.

(12-04-2020 04:48 PM)ruowls Wrote:  One player tested positive and the rest of the players tested negative. Because one player tested positive, Rice asked a rapid test be done on Saturday morning and that is when 11 UTEP players tested positive (10 were false positives).

What does having 10 false positives from 11 tests given say about the quality/efficacy/accuracy of the rapid test? Is this unusually bad luck? Or is there something seriously deficient with this test. And if the latter, why would anyone choose to give it or act on its results?

(12-05-2020 01:44 AM)Almadenmike Wrote:  What does having 10 false positives from 11 tests given say about the quality/efficacy/accuracy of the rapid test? Is this unusually bad luck? Or is there something seriously deficient with this test. And if the latter, why would anyone choose to give it or act on its results?

Because we are panicking over this. Panic makes you do stupid stuff.

(12-05-2020 05:27 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(12-05-2020 01:44 AM)Almadenmike Wrote:  What does having 10 false positives from 11 tests given say about the quality/efficacy/accuracy of the rapid test? Is this unusually bad luck? Or is there something seriously deficient with this test. And if the latter, why would anyone choose to give it or act on its results?

Because we are panicking over this. Panic makes you do stupid stuff.

With all this discussion about testing protocol we're kind of making that point...especially (and maybe someone can refute this I'm lazy and asking not telling) with all these positive tests in the NCAA and NFL are there any/many of these athletes now sitting in a hospital or ICU? I mean that is the major point of testing multiple times a week - player safety not just community spread. I still contend that if they tested for the long term impact of brain and joint damage it would come back 100% positive and is much more of a reason not to step on the field than Covid.