NY Times cites report saying NFL games with fans caused COVID spikes

[Governor]

48 minutes ago, LeGOATski said:

More people get together = more cases of illness. Seems like common sense that no one would question normally....

 

Many other studies of airborne sicknesses have been done over the last 200 years....

 

I hope all stadiums allow vaccinated fans back in 2021. It just makes sense and everyone will have a great time.

From the looks of it, some concerts (arenas, stadiums, amphitheaters) will be happening in the month of August so the NFL will have that data and the used procedures to look at before the season starts. Vaccinated folks will get the go-ahead and tickets should be easier to get since 30 percent of fans won’t be able to attend.

[Hapless Bills Fan]

12 minutes ago, The Governor said:

From the looks of it, some concerts (arenas, stadiums, amphitheaters) will be happening in the month of August so the NFL will have that data and the used procedures to look at before the season starts. Vaccinated folks will get the go-ahead and tickets should be easier to get since 30 percent of fans won’t be able to attend.

 

Germany did a big study of a simulated concert last summer....this is the only report I could find of the results (it omitted certain precautions, like I believe the participants were all tested before the study).  They used contact tracers to determine where people were getting too close for too long (entrances and exits) and fluorescent hand sanitizer.

The take-home seemed to be that if there was good ventilation (outdoors, *cough*) and protocols were followed, the "infection risk" (unclear how they defined that) could be lowered 70x.

 

I think a take-home of the Lancet study is, as they point out, if a spike attributed to the game occurred, they don't know where - and it may not have been in the stadium at all.

[appoo]

4 hours ago, The Governor said:

Yeah, you’ll need proof of vaccination or a negative test to enter a game next season and I’m just fine with that.

Since we're down this rathole, I'm not sure this is at all necessary. I think the only business that would need a vaccination are flights - domestic or international, and that's because you don't know where people are coming from before they get on a plane, and you're messing around with variants from around the world. We don't need to ADD to the at risk population.

 

What's the purpose of requiring vaccination proof to get into a stadium? Who are we protecting? People who refuse to get a vaccine? 

 

My leading identifier is that of empathy. I believe empathy to be the most powerful force on Earth.  I don't have empathy for those who choose not to get vaccinated. I hold no ill will towards them as they have free will on whether or not to get vaccinated, but I don't have empathy for them if they refuse to get vaccinated, and then get sick. After the year we as a society, and me personally, have been through, I just can't.  If you want to walk into a stadium unvaccinated, be it on your own head.

 

Btw, this is also why I'm fully supportive of Josh Allen. He doesn't want to get a vaccine, and at this point that's not something that will harm society, The man followed all COVID protocols and masked etc, that's all we can ask of him. Let him make his own choice based on his own beliefs.  But at the same time that choice shouldn't inform decisions on community activities.

Edited April 8, 2021 by appoo

[Governor]

12 minutes ago, appoo said:

Since we're down this rathole, I'm not sure this is at all necessary. I think the only business that would need a vaccination are flights - domestic or international, and that's because you don't know where people are coming from before they get on a plane, and you're messing around with variants from around the world. We don't need to ADD to the at risk population.

 

What's the purpose of requiring vaccination proof to get into a stadium? Who are we protecting? People who refuse to get a vaccine? 

 

My leading identifier is that of empathy. I believe empathy to be the most powerful force on Earth.  I don't have empathy for those who choose not to get vaccinated. I hold no ill will towards them as they have free will on whether or not to get vaccinated, but I don't have empathy for them if they refuse to get vaccinated, and then get sick. After the year we as a society, and me personally, have been through, I just can't.  If you want to walk into a stadium unvaccinated, be it on your own head.

 

Btw, this is also why I'm fully supportive of Josh Allen. He doesn't want to get a vaccine, and at this point that's not something that will harm society, The man followed all COVID protocols and masked etc, that's all we can ask of him. Let him make his own choice based on his own beliefs.  But at the same time that choice shouldn't inform decisions on community activities.

That very well may be the landscape by September. I guess it depends on how quickly children get vaccinated. Restrictions will probably change as the season progresses.

[Hapless Bills Fan]

8 minutes ago, appoo said:

What's the purpose of requiring vaccination proof to get into a stadium? Who are we protecting? People who refuse to get a vaccine?

 

Well, if you have a vaccine that in real life use is 90% effective in preventing disease, that means 10% of those vaccinated still get infected over a period of time

If you have a vaccine that in real life use is 70% effective, that means 30% still get infected over a period of time.

 

Currently children under 16 can't be vaccinated at all.  Some of them still get seriously ill, especially if they have a preexisting condition such as a heart disease or diabetes.

 

So some of the people we're trying to protect are vaccinated (or ineligible to vaccinate) individuals.  Perhaps individuals who would not attend a crowded gathering but who come in contact with an unvaccinated person who did, and got ill.

 

Perhaps your empathy should do a little flex?  Just a leeetle one?

 

 

 

 

[appoo]

4 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

Well, if you have a vaccine that in real life use is 90% effective in preventing disease, that means 10% of those vaccinated still get infected over a period of time

If you have a vaccine that in real life use is 70% effective, that means 30% still get infected over a period of time.

 

Currently children under 16 can't be vaccinated at all.  Some of them still get seriously ill, especially if they have a preexisting condition such as a heart disease or diabetes.

 

So some of the people we're trying to protect are vaccinated (or ineligible to vaccinate) individuals.  Perhaps individuals who would not attend a crowded gathering but who come in contact with an unvaccinated person who did, and got ill.

 

Perhaps your empathy should do a little flex?  Just a leeetle one?

 

 

 

 

That's a fair point with regards to the children. If that doesn't become available till late summer or something, you can't really say they've had access, and it would be fair to  request either a vaccine or test if that were the case

 

With regards to efficacy, all 3 of the vaccines are 100% effective  in preventing even hospitalization, much less death - and I should note that I'm perfectly ok with organizations asking people to mask when using their facilities.

 

As for my empathy comment, that was specifically targeted to those people who have access to the vaccine, and refuse to take it.

 

I certainly have a ton of empathy for those who can not access a vaccine, and would do my best to protect them. That's why even though I'll be vaccinated by mid April, I plan on masking and social distancing in public through the rest of the year.

[Doc Brown]

9 hours ago, Rochesterfan said:

 

Without doing DNA sequencing on all of the positive samples - they can only ever prove a Suggested link.  
 

What you see is spikes in and around the NFL stadiums (many different stadiums not just an over all link) and those match the timeframes of the game. 

I understand all that but I just found the study funny as in they put in all that time to put common sense to paper.

[Hapless Bills Fan]

5 minutes ago, appoo said:

With regards to efficacy, all 3 of the vaccines are 100% effective  in preventing even hospitalization, much less death

 

Nothing is 100% in real life use.  There are data up in some real life studies of 1.2 million people up in the Covid info thread. 

Spoiler: it's less than 100%

[Boxcar]

10 hours ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

You know, this really should be a football relevant topic that we can have a discussion about, but if this is the reaction, I guess the answer is still "no".

 

Science seldom proves anything.  Scientists are a cautious bunch.  We're the ones who get asked "what color is this house painted?" and say "the two sides I can see appear to be blue".  So "suggesting a causal link" but not proving it, is about the best we can do, but it should at least be given some attention and not dismissed out of hand.

 

If you look at the actual article, they tried pretty hard to account for those other causes

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3805754

 

 

Ignoring the science, those people chose to go to those games and accepted the risks. Not sure what the big deal is. Of course there will be more cases if you're in a football stadium, not locked inside.

 

1 hour ago, appoo said:

That's a fair point with regards to the children. If that doesn't become available till late summer or something, you can't really say they've had access, and it would be fair to  request either a vaccine or test if that were the case

 

With regards to efficacy, all 3 of the vaccines are 100% effective  in preventing even hospitalization, much less death - and I should note that I'm perfectly ok with organizations asking people to mask when using their facilities.

 

As for my empathy comment, that was specifically targeted to those people who have access to the vaccine, and refuse to take it.

 

I certainly have a ton of empathy for those who can not access a vaccine, and would do my best to protect them. That's why even though I'll be vaccinated by mid April, I plan on masking and social distancing in public through the rest of the year.

What are the effects 2 years from now?

[Rochesterfan]

6 hours ago, Doc Brown said:

I understand all that but I just found the study funny as in they put in all that time to put common sense to paper.

 

I agree, but even in this thread the “common sense” is not believed - so they wanted to review the data to see the impact and verify if what makes sense occurred or not.  They did it with available data from the states/CDC and without trying to judge the overall place of infection - just the root cause.  It should be nearly non-controversial, but yet people laud it as a NYT hit piece or blast the Lancet as a bad source - when neither was involved - they are just the conveyance of the info.

 

For those of us in the medical field - I find this type of study and data fascinating and think the tragedy of this pandemic can lead to whole new understandings based upon what we have learned.  The fact that we have gone an entire flu season with almost no flu (or colds or RSV) at all confirms older theory’s about prevention.

Edited April 8, 2021 by Rochesterfan

[Rochesterfan]

5 hours ago, Boxcar said:

Ignoring the science, those people chose to go to those games and accepted the risks. Not sure what the big deal is. Of course there will be more cases if you're in a football stadium, not locked inside.

 

What are the effects 2 years from now?

 

The “big deal” is that the increase infection rate was not necessarily the people that choose to go to the game and accept the risk.  The increased rate was in the surrounding community.  The study does not make a conclusion that people at the game necessarily spread the infection amongst themselves.  The conclusion was the gatherings lead to more people in the area: potential waiters/bar workers, grocery store clerks, security, testing personnel, hotel workers, Uber drivers, food delivery (Grub Hub), parking attendants, concession workers and vendors, etc. - all were part of the contact tracing and the gathering of >5000 fans saw this group of people infected more frequently than when no fans were present.

 

The people at the game chose to go and accepted the risk - the others impacted were just doing their job, but their job put them in higher contact with people that chose to go and did it without their choice or acceptance.  They did it because they lived paycheck to paycheck and had to go to work.

 

If the entire increase had just been confined to those that chose to go - then you are correct, but the issue is the collateral people impacted and then the secondary and tertiary people infected by them.

 

The study is dumb because the findings were fairly easy to know before hand as any large gathering be it riots, political gatherings, or routine things like birthday, weddings, and funerals- all showed increase spread, but it needed to be done to confirm the thoughts and see - could large outdoor gatherings of fans really not lead to increased community spread.

[FireChans]

2 minutes ago, Rochesterfan said:

 

The “big deal” is that the increase infection rate was not necessarily the people that choose to go to the game and accept the risk.  The increased rate was in the surrounding community.  The study does not make a conclusion that people at the game necessarily spread the infection amongst themselves.  The conclusion was the gatherings lead to more people in the area: potential waiters/bar workers, grocery store clerks, security, testing personnel, hotel workers, Uber drivers, food delivery (Grub Hub), parking attendants, concession workers and vendors, etc. - all were part of the contact tracing and the gathering of >5000 fans saw this group of people infected more frequently than when no fans were present.

 

The people at the game chose to go and accepted the risk - the others impacted were just doing their job, but their job put them in higher contact with people that chose to go and did it without their choice or acceptance.  They did it because they lived paycheck to paycheck and had to go to work.

 

If the entire increase had just been confined to those that chose to go - then you are correct, but the issue is the collateral people impacted and then the secondary and tertiary people infected by them.

 

The study is dumb because the findings were fairly easy to know before hand as any large gathering be it riots, political gatherings, or routine things like birthday, weddings, and funerals- all showed increase spread, but it needed to be done to confirm the thoughts and see - could large outdoor gatherings of fans really not lead to increased community spread.

Did the people infected in the community all practice strict hand hygiene, mask wearing and social distancing?

[Rochesterfan]

Just now, FireChans said:

Did the people infected in the community all practice strict hand hygiene, mask wearing and social distancing?

 They don’t make that judgement - which is the same reason they do not state the game itself was the reason for the spread.  The game was just the epicenter to bring large groups together.  They specifically state the spread could be due to factors outside the game, but the large gathering of people changed something in the community- because there was an increase not seen following games with no fans or weeks with no games played.

 

That suggests since the NFL is a weekly league it was not the actual game, but a function of the gathering.  The study tried to put no cause to the increase.  They also tried to look at certain games with fans that saw no increase and find out what was different, but no rules stuck out - so they could not conclude that team A was better than team B - just that in some cases no major increase was seen.

[FireChans]

5 minutes ago, Rochesterfan said:

 They don’t make that judgement - which is the same reason they do not state the game itself was the reason for the spread.  The game was just the epicenter to bring large groups together.  They specifically state the spread could be due to factors outside the game, but the large gathering of people changed something in the community- because there was an increase not seen following games with no fans or weeks with no games played.

 

That suggests since the NFL is a weekly league it was not the actual game, but a function of the gathering.  The study tried to put no cause to the increase.  They also tried to look at certain games with fans that saw no increase and find out what was different, but no rules stuck out - so they could not conclude that team A was better than team B - just that in some cases no major increase was seen.

So then it’s a useless report.

 

Large gatherings may affect COVID numbers but we’re not sure. Is this an article published in April 2020? Did the pandemic just start?

[GimmeSomeProcess]

BS, I was at the colts game and no way in hell did that contribute to large spikes. It was well planned and safe.

[Rochesterfan]

14 minutes ago, FireChans said:

So then it’s a useless report.

 

Large gatherings may affect COVID numbers but we’re not sure. Is this an article published in April 2020? Did the pandemic just start?

 

It was not a report - it was a retroactive study and yes that is the conclusion that large gatherings caused increased COVID numbers in the community.  The epicenter was looking at NFL games with fans versus without fans and the differences in community spread.
 

Yet people argue still now that it was not an issue.  
 

The research team also tried to find if certain protocols were better and limited spread as some games did not show the same increases, but there were not enough common denominators between limited spread and larger spread to say that.  The goal was to determine did it have an impact as you would expect it to - even with the protocols in place and where certain protocols more or less effective so in the future you know what might work.  That data was inconclusive because without DNA sequencing info - they could not state the spread occurred at the game or in the surrounding community before or after the game due to behaviors (or just dumb luck).

 

In the end - yes it is not real useful because it was just a retroactive data study based upon local, state, and CDC numbers within communities.  No one ever said it was more.

[nucci]

14 hours ago, Prospector said:

I would think a lot of board members do. My wife is in the field.. and most of the doctors and specialists she works with also say things are way too restrictive.

 

I agree some things were a bit restrictive but i also believe a lot of it was and is necessary

[Rochesterfan]

53 minutes ago, FireChans said:

So then it’s a useless report.

 

Large gatherings may affect COVID numbers but we’re not sure. Is this an article published in April 2020? Did the pandemic just start?

 

The reason it was not useless is the 2 comments directly after yours - NYT fearporn for a study they were not involved in and did not print and claims there was no spike.  The Bills playoff game was safe and could not have lead to a spike.  
 

Those two comments are the exact reason it was done and why they did not draw specific conclusions.  The games were done in a safe effective manner, but the community and surrounding areas were impacted.

[Gordio]

13 hours ago, Ethan in Portland said:

The games were just as good with no fans.  

 

 

No they weren't.  That is not even debatable.  

[Gordio]

9 hours ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

Good job keeping the focus towards the topic of football stadiums. 

 

There are a couple tech. issues with this generally correct assessment -

1) there's a lot of overlap between vaccinated people, and people who have previous covid infection (infected people are still recommended to be vaccinated - so can't just add the two numbers.)

2) this is still under investigation, but it's known that the Sars-Cov2 virus actively evades the immune response (it's a survival tool for many viruses, this one just seems better than many at FSU).  So there's an emerging believe that vaccinated immunity, which bypasses the immune suppression and evasion mechanisms of a natural infection, may actually produce stronger immunity.

3) the estimate of 75% of the population to achieve herd immunity was based upon the R0 of the original dominant Sars-Cov2 strain.  The more infectious variants may require a higher level. 

 

My point is that public health departments and epidemiologists may do the math a little bit differently than you are, and if the vaccination rate lags down at 60% or so, they may be running models and saying "ah yeah, I see reasons not to allow the stadia here to fill up to capacity"

 

Hopefully it will be a moot point.

 

 

 

This the problem with this whole situation though, the higher powers keep changing the goal posts and it seems like they are making stuff up as they go along just to prolong this thing and keep control.  I am going to leave it at that as I don't want to get suspended again.  I will say, the NFL is a very powerful force too, and I doubt Goodell and the boys are willing to swallow $3 billion dollars in loss revenue for a second straight year by not allowing fans in especially since most of the college stadiums in the south are going to be full go come Labor Day.