Sigh. What did you say about overstating positions?
What I said was there's no reason you can't play football safely with regular testing and some basic team rules. No partying, no mass gathering outside the team, etc etc
Saying that 72 players that got it outside of football while completely ignoring social distancing and going about their business normally is not a counter argument.
How many of those players died? How many even went to hospital? None.
There's been 3 pandemics in the last 100 years. No lockdowns, no cancelling sports.
In 1957-58 Avian Flu killed 1.1 million people worldwide when the world population was a 3rd of what it is now. Including 116,000 people in the USA when your population was 175m. And that virus killed younger people much more easily. A lot of those deaths were kids, pregnant women and under 50. Much more evenly spread than Covid across age groups.
Our grandparents didn't even blink. They just got on. And the death toll only stopped there because they got a vaccine quickly.
Then in '68 there was Hong Kong flu. 1 million worldwide and 100k in the US with a global population under half was it is now. Half those deaths were under 50. It was only limited because of some immunity rolled over from '57. No lockdown. No cancelling sports. The Packers won the superbowl. The Eagles starting running back lost 15lbs in a week shivering in bed. 5 Eagles players had it the same week and missed games. The only press coverage was a 65 word note by the AP.
4 New York Giants missed the whole of December with it. It didn't even make the news.
Lyndon Johnson had it. The Apollo 8 crew had it. Woodstock went ahead in the middle of all this going on. People just got on. No sports stars died despite the viruses much higher risk to that age group.
Now, I can feel you itching to type "but Covid is more deadly". Is it? The CDC says "The range of estimates put the fatality rate for those showing symptoms between 0.2%-1%, with a "best estimate" of 0.4%". And that's for those "showing symptoms". We now a large percentage are asymptomatic.
That's right there with the fatality rates on those two flu pandemics. And data gathering was infinitely poorer back then. Odds are many more died with it than recorded. And lets remember, both those pandemics killed FAR more children and people under 65 than Covid.
We have become soft as a species, especially in the west. We are pampered and coddled. Where our parents and grandparents would have handled this with a shrug and "get on with it" attitude we are cowering in our homes too scared to go out.
The only difference between those previous pandemics and now is the bombardment of information designed to keep you in your box. X amount tested positive today, X amount died yesterday.
It's as much a crisis of too much information and fear as it is of health.
Yes, Covid is deadly. But not nearly as much as the constant press fear mongering would suggest.
Yes, people should be cautious and sensible.
And at the same time,
Many are overreacting.
Overreacting and cancelling everything can kill as many people (if not more) that just getting on.
Stopping living isn't a solution.
Let's be more like those previous generations that had grit and got on, and not the embarrassment of spineless, pampered, cowards we seem to have become.
