COVID-19 and the Red Sox

Max Power

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Jul 20, 2005
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Is it me and my perception that the number of professional athletes contracting the virus is greater than that of the general population? Probably not a fair and quantifiable question/answer is it?
Seems that way to me. It looks like the positive test rate among players is 5-10% (2 to 4 per 40 man roster). There's no way 5-10% of the people in the country have a current infection. The simplest explanation is that a lot of players live in Florida, Texas, and Arizona, where the numbers are way higher than the country as a whole.
 

Spelunker

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Seems that way to me. It looks like the positive test rate among players is 5-10% (2 to 4 per 40 man roster). There's no way 5-10% of the people in the country have a current infection. The simplest explanation is that a lot of players live in Florida, Texas, and Arizona, where the numbers are way higher than the country as a whole.
It was 1.2% of all tests.

https://apnews.com/db92ca5d1441d4ba5ba5d1e69db8e0b8
 

Lose Remerswaal

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This was the initial reporting but it seems like many more have been reported since then, and that first reporting didn't include all of the teams.
This.

As we get more reports, the number goes up. That "38" figure was immediately suspect as I believe there were reports well into the high 20s of specific numbers on specific teams, and that was only on limited teams
 

mwonow

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Forced to pick in a "name one Red Sox player who will catch a disease that affects only a couple of percent of MLB pros," I would have had EdRod first, and not bothered with a second (well, maybe Sale, actually).
 

Spelunker

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This.

As we get more reports, the number goes up. That "38" figure was immediately suspect as I believe there were reports well into the high 20s of specific numbers on specific teams, and that was only on limited teams
My bad: I thought the initial test run was complete, and the we were just learning more about who was in that positive crowd.
 

Fratboy

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Yeah, so I said this back to my fantasy league back in March, and I'll say it again:

There will be no baseball in 2020.

Or, as someone else here (?) put it: over/under on games played this year: 0.5.

I'm taking the under.
 

radsoxfan

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Not that this is gospel, but covid19-proecjtions estimated 0.85% of US currently infected right now (2.85M people). I'm not entirely sure what they mean by "current" though, and some people have been Covid Positive for quite awhile as they may still shed inactive virus. I would suspect MLB players overall would end up with a higher positive test % given many have probably recently been in AZ or FL.

FWIW, they also estimate 214k new infections per day and overall 21M infections (past and current combined, 6.2% of the population).
 

NomarsFool

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The positive rate in Massachusetts (only testing people with symptoms or who have been in contact with a confirmed COVID case) is like only 1.8%.

So, I am surprised the MLB number is as high as it is. You'd think that this group of people, with resources at their disposal in the top 1% of everyone in the country, would have a lower rate of infection.

I don't know the answer, but my guess if you took out people in group living situations, healthcare workers, and essential workers who have no choice but to go to work the positive rate would be much, much lower than 1.8%.
 

radsoxfan

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Just to continue with the covid19-projections (these are not those with positive tests, but an estimate for the number of people in the state currently infected right now)

Arizona currently infected: 3.15% (229k people)
Florida currently infected: 1.84% (394k people)

Of course lots of variables can alter those numbers for any individual, but as a ballpark baseline estimate, that's the range I would expect MLB players to end up if many of them have been there recently.
 

jon abbey

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The positive rate in Massachusetts (only testing people with symptoms or who have been in contact with a confirmed COVID case) is like only 1.8%.

So, I am surprised the MLB number is as high as it is. You'd think that this group of people, with resources at their disposal in the top 1% of everyone in the country, would have a lower rate of infection.

I don't know the answer, but my guess if you took out people in group living situations, healthcare workers, and essential workers who have no choice but to go to work the positive rate would be much, much lower than 1.8%.
Don't forget a lot of these MLB players have no symptoms, so I think maybe what we can take from this is that there are decidedly more people infected in the main population than know it (but we already knew that, we just don't have numbers for it).
 

jk333

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Don't forget a lot of these MLB players have no symptoms, so I think maybe what we can take from this is that there are decidedly more people infected in the main population than know it (but we already knew that, we just don't have numbers for it).
There is actually a lot of data about this. There have been studies in Germany, New York, Geneva and Boston as well as data from the CDC. In short, multiple cases by about 10.

Initially the documented PCR cases (the ones reported on the news) were 10x to 20x under. Of late, they are closer to 5x under and are not expected to improve very much past that.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/commercial-lab-surveys.html
 

Captaincoop

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At my office, where we are about to test several hundred people, we've been told to expect 5ish% positive tests. This is by state health officials. So none of this sounds out of the norm.
 

MuppetAsteriskTalk

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At my office, where we are about to test several hundred people, we've been told to expect 5ish% positive tests. This is by state health officials. So none of this sounds out of the norm.
They expect 5% to test positive for CV-19 or positive for antibodies?
 

MonstahsInLeft

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One thing to consider with the reported numbers though is that when sweep testing large groups of asymptomatic people like this there's a definite false positive rate (ie positive tests for people who don't actually have the virus).

The military has started this for one (think testing all the sailors on a carrier before it goes to sea) and there are ballpark estimates of around a 1% false positive rate with swab testing. So just based on the test itself if you swab a thousand virus-free people you might have 10 false positives. So a fair percentage of these symptom-free positive players, up to a quarter, may not actually have the virus.

On the flip side, swabs may miss a good 20-30% of people WITH the virus (and potentially more than that in asymptomatic/pre-symptomatic people) so even players that are testing negative may mask a fairly large number of infected people. This is where the social distancing and other mitigation measures will be put to the test in minimizing outbreaks among players and staff (not real optimistic about that).

Antibody testing has it's own similar benefits and drawbacks with regard to false positives and negatives. Bottom line, there are still LOTS of limitations in any version of current testing even when you can get it. Given the relatively high numbers circulating in the population of many states even an aggressive testing regimen is only partially helpful in trying to keep COVID from running through these teams.
 

trs

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Two big caveats before this post: not a doctor and certainly not a professional athlete.

That being said, I currently live in Spain where professional sport has returned and so far rather successfully in terms of players not getting infected, staying healthy, etc. While I haven't spent too much time following baseball's attempt to return, or the NBA or NHL for that matter, I have wondered to myself why it is so much more complicated and difficult.

Spain's first major outbreak occurred in Madrid and Barcelona in the second week of March, as many of you know. About one week later New York City and Seattle saw similar outbreaks. La Liga returned here on June 11, about 3 months after its last game on March 10. The Italian league began about a week and a half later with other European leagues more or less following suit (except for France which canceled the season outright -- partially due to the virus and partially due to PSG having already clinched the league). I mention specifically Spain and Italy due to their similar situations.

When Madrid spiked, it took a bit of time for the central government here to react, and they have received criticism for that. However, they did act, and by March 16 we were in a "State of Alarm" country-wide, despite the outbreak really having only hit Madrid and Barcelona at that time. Many of you perhaps already know this, but the "lockdown" American speak about/spoke about is a bit of a disservice to the term lock-down when compared to what happened in Spain (and Italy). We were only let out of our residences to go grocery shopping (in Italy you needed to carry a self-authorization that could be requested by police and if you were out too frequently, that was a fine or even jail) or to the pharmacy. No travel, no exercise, no parks, no "paseando." This lasted until May 22 when we entered "phase 0" and could take walks and exercise individually outside during certain timetables. I am certainly not a proponent of coercive governments, especially in countries with recent experience with fascism and a rather active far-right, but the measures had an effect. We are now seeing some "rebrotes" or resurgences of the virus after a few weeks of freedom, but so far they are manageable and we can still live somewhat normal lives, all with masks on for the most part. On top of this, there was decent coordination within the EU, reducing if not eliminating travel to cut spread, and aside from the UK, things are looking somewhat positive here. This was possible with an even more decentralized system than the US.

I don't mean for this to be a political post, and if it strays too far, I apologize, and someone can delete, but I think we have a pretty good natural case-study in terms of the effectiveness of a unified and far-sighted (even if it felt a little authoritarian and extreme at the time) response to the virus versus what happened in the US. With one response, something like professional sport is possible and perhaps even rather safe, and with another, let's be honest, if there are ANY professional games played before January 1, I'll be shocked, either at the sudden improvement of the situation or the decision to play regardless.

Yes there are constitutional issues at play, as to whether a unified response would be possible in the States, but it seems like the "dance" that we hear about in the news in terms of dealing with the virus is only really possible after being first "grounded" at home.

Lastly, referring back to one of my caveats, it just seems like there is just too much of the virus around in the States. Questions as to how professional athletes can be infected despite all the care and measures taken to keep them safe proves just how virulent Covid is. The US spent 4 months pretending the virus would stay where it was, and now it hasn't. And it will continue not to.

Anyway, it's sad, and I do hope things improve such that we can enjoy baseball again soon. I miss it, despite it always starting at 2am for me. In the meantime, if you pick a Spanish soccer team, pick Atletico, not Real.
 

OCST

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Yeah, so I said this back to my fantasy league back in March, and I'll say it again:

There will be no baseball in 2020.

Or, as someone else here (?) put it: over/under on games played this year: 0.5.

I'm taking the under.
concur
 

geoflin

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Not a good sign that MLS already had to cancel today's opening game, followed by cancellation of another game, due to one of the teams having too many players with Covid.
 
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jk333

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Two big caveats before this post: not a doctor and certainly not a professional athlete.That being said, I currently live in Spain where professional sport has returned and so far rather successfully in terms of players not getting infected, staying healthy, etc.

Spain's first major outbreak occurred in Madrid and Barcelona in the second week of March, as many of you know. About one week later New York City and Seattle saw similar outbreaks.

Lastly, referring back to one of my caveats, it just seems like there is just too much of the virus around in the States. Questions as to how professional athletes can be infected despite all the care and measures taken to keep them safe proves just how virulent Covid is. The US spent 4 months pretending the virus would stay where it was, and now it hasn't. And it will continue not to.

Anyway, it's sad, and I do hope things improve such that we can enjoy baseball again soon. I miss it, despite it always starting at 2am for me. In the meantime, if you pick a Spanish soccer team, pick Atletico, not Real.
I mostly agree but even though the NJ/NY/MA outbreak was worse than the European cities, it is now contained. It’s been the American reopening that has failed.

The European method of lockdown allowed for fewer deaths and cases but in both areas with outbreaks in March, the virus is contained.

Focussing on sports, it’s why the MLB has the biggest challenge with so much virus around players in Texas/Arizona/California. You’re completely right, it may be too much virus around the players daily with just positive tests constantly trickling in. In comparison, the NHL has the easiest path with everyone in just two locations with less virus. They *should* be able to play.

NBA is, IMO, the middle road, lots of virus around them but with one location, they should be more able to manage.

There’s a chance for all 3 but to me, NHL>>NBA>MLB.
 

Lose Remerswaal

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You said:

I hope we never reach the 2-4 million deaths they predicted.
I said, How about 1.75 million? as you had established you didn't want 2-4 million. You have shown that you are against multiple millions of deaths, I was trying to determine what level you were comfortable wtih

We must have different facts. In America it is almost 132,000. Worldwide 545,000.
And then you posted this ^^ which has nothing to do with my question
 

E5 Yaz

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I said, How about 1.75 million? as you had established you didn't want 2-4 million. You have shown that you are against multiple millions of deaths, I was trying to determine what level you were comfortable wtih
618,223
 

keninten

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You said:



I said, How about 1.75 million? as you had established you didn't want 2-4 million. You have shown that you are against multiple millions of deaths, I was trying to determine what level you were comfortable wtih


And then you posted this ^^ which has nothing to do with my question
Yup I see how you took what I meant. My point was they keep changing everything about the pandemic. It`s not near what they have predicted but still could go crazy. First mask were bad, now they are good. The mask statement is wrong, Sorry. Hydroxychloroquine was bad, now it`s good. Pandemics are harder to predict than the weather. The positive tests are up but the death rate is going down. If they had been able to test from the start we would have a higher rate back at the beginning.
 
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Red(s)HawksFan

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Yup I see how you took what I meant. My point was they keep changing everything about the pandemic. It`s not near what they have predicted but still could go crazy. First mask were bad, now they are good. Hydroxychloroquine was bad, now it`s good. Pandemics are harder to predict than the weather. The positive tests are up but the death rate is going down. If they had been able to test from the start we would have a higher rate back at the beginning.
This really isn't the forum for this, but the pandemic was not that is hard to predict. Much of the rest of the world was able to get things more or less under control. Something was/is distinctly different in the US, and it sure as hell wasn't an unpredictable virus.
 

PC Drunken Friar

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Yup I see how you took what I meant. My point was they keep changing everything about the pandemic. It`s not near what they have predicted but still could go crazy. First mask were bad, now they are good. Hydroxychloroquine was bad, now it`s good. Pandemics are harder to predict than the weather. The positive tests are up but the death rate is going down. If they had been able to test from the start we would have a higher rate back at the beginning.
https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/2020/07/07/teen-attended-gathering-given-unproven-drugs-before-covid-19-death-reports-say/
Maybe educate yourself a little better on this subject? Maybe you were being tongue in cheek?
 

jon abbey

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And the death rate is down in large part because those states are marking ‘other’ as cause of death instead of Covid if at all possible.
 

keninten

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And the death rate is down in large part because those states are marking ‘other’ as cause of death instead of Covid if at all possible.
This really is the heart of the problem. Some media is saying what you are, and it could be true. Others are saying early on hospital were getting $10,000 in reimbursements from medicare to put covid. I believed this because all of a sudden no one was dying of things such as pneumonia or influenza.
 

keninten

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