We can all agree this was an abject failure on all accounts. The thing that was the most egregious was the lack of communication on any level. Whether the process was all false positives and they should've played or they were all real positives and they couldn't play, they along with us just need to know what the hell was going on. It seems like no one knew and never even had a chance to know, which is lunacy. You'd think communication would be at the forefront at the top of this when it was the last thing on any sanctioning body's mind.
I kind of think a reason the full scope of how many if any tested positive, etc. hasn't been made explicit is because that information doesn't help the convenient argument that the CoB is to blame. The football team's argument is beginning to look like a child's who complains that he had had to eat four stalks of broccoli when his sister only had to eat two. I'm sure our protocols are more excessive than anywhere in the country. That sucks for the football team, but hopefully in the end it's what's best for the community. I also know that had the team been more diligent with its own protocols, they probably wouldn't be in the situation they are in.
Vaccination does not necessarily preclude the spread of COVID, which is why the CDC still recommends in-door masking, something the football team doesn't seem to have been good at enforcing if recent social media has indicated.
Also vaccine effectiveness at reducing spread wanes after six months or so, so it's important to remain diligent with CDC protocols.
Do we know that all 24 players and 12 coaches who were held out of last week's game had positive results? Could it be that they were identified as contact tracing, given that there were multiple negative players on/before Friday?
Right. Wilcox was mad that there were multiple players with negative results who could not travel. So doesn't that mean those guys never tested positive to begin with?
From what I have read, they initially tested positive and then had a negative test. He was mad that they weren’t allowed to travel and was of the opinion that the first test as a false positive.
Okay, that's more understandable. If he thinks it was false positive, it makes sense why he was mad. But if they tested positive once, then not being able to travel within 10 days is something we have to accept, unless they tested negative twice, I think they should be allowed to travel.
Wait, he's mad that they had to test for Covid? I thought the problem was players were negative but not allowed to play, but he doesn't say anything about it. Even if the test was forced, if they found positive cases which otherwise would not have been detected, isn't that a good thing? I don't get why he is mad that they were forced to take the Covid test.
Then he is wrong to be mad at the University. If he was positive and they isolated him, that was a good thing. Of course from the football standpoint I really wish Garbers has played, but I don't see anything wrong with what has happened.
I think Knowlton hasn’t said anything because he does know what the exact issue is/was and that it isn’t the CoB, it’s an internal university issue and protocol.
From Chase's tweet, it doesn't seem like he knows exactly what his rights are. I don't know what his rights here are either, but then I'm not trying to play Cal football.
Everyone was quick to blame CoB and was sure it was those evil CoB health officials when it seems pretty clear it was the university that required this.
The fluctuating rules seem to be coming from the university and not CoB. This looks bad for our AD.
Was the team doing all it could to follow precautions? If it wasn't...if the team got lax...COVID has shown it doesn't give a shit about rules and procedures.
These players got burned for being careless. But it was Wilcox who abetted an atmosphere where carelessness was overlooked, and ultimately enabled.
Starting with his choice last season to wear a gaiter on the sidelines instead of an actual mask (when gaiters had already been shown to be quite ineffective against COVID transmission), I've become convinced that Wilcox hasn't really done all he could to take these pandemic precautions seriously.
So yeah, go ahead, Justin, try to plead your case in front of the University. Good luck with that.
For a coach who needs to win on the margins in order for his team to be successful, keeping all of his players eligible for games would be something you'd think he'd give a shit about. Wear a mask, continue to distance, stay the fuck away from that off-campus banger of a party for now...how hard would that have been for him to pushing a message like that through his coaches down through the players?
I mean, it's not like he's spending time prepping a backup QB...
Ever wonder why we haven’t heard much from Knowlton? It’s because he knows exactly what happened and it looks like Cal is the one who enforced testing and quarantine and not CoB.
But if chase and all the players were positive it doesn’t really matter because they wouldn’t be allowed to play, I believe that is true if all schools. If a player is positive, they sit.
Also, it would be enlightening to know the general incidence of positive tests in the whole Cal community on a weekly basis. Team activity shouldn't be restricted if the positivity rate (generally can be higher due to Delta) is no different than the general population.
Maybe I'm missing something glaringly obvious, but directly from the CoB's health order:
"Individuals with symptoms of COVID-19 or who have been informed that they
are presumptively positive for COVID-19 are no longer required to self-isolate if
they receive a negative lab test that confirms they are not infected with COVID19."
If I were Wilcox and saw this, and was told "No, this section doesn't apply to your players, only the previous section does" I would also be rightly pissed.
Additionally, there's a lot of talk of "negative test doesn't mean no Covid". That's technically true... however the missing caveat is that for a PCR test the largest danger is in the *early* stages of Covid. If a player tested positive, then days later tests negative repeatedly, and a PCR test does not detect the virus upon repeated samples, there is little chance they have Covid. Just my two cents.
As pointed out in the DBD thread, another thing that doesn't add up is the 24 positive tests despite 99% vaccination. Realistically, you'd expect maybe two breakthroughs, but 24 is crazy.
36 positive tests including the coaches. I "estimate" that that is 30% of the football staff and players! Statistically, on a 99% vax cohort, it requires further research: false-positives, testing technique, and on and on...
After the first positive test, players should have been sent to UHS on an urgent basis for a supervised set of repeat tests. That number of positive tests should never have been accepted in this population as definitive. The ball was clearly dropped.
Yeah, that definitely seems screwy from an epidemiological perspective. That vaxxed of a population would increase the likelihood of false positives. Testing error needs to be ruled out if the context is exactly as we interpret it. My frustration is that no one is providing the necessary details.
Not so crazy if you look at the decline in efficacy with J&J (and the other vaccines) six months out. We know 99% are fully vaccinated, but we don't know with which vaccine. I'm willing to guess though that most if not all have not yet been boosted, so they are at higher risk of getting covid due to the increased travel, increased contact, and decreasing vaccine protection. Again, just my guess.
The comment that rapid tests have their drawbacks is easy, but basically false. They have drawbacks when used incorrectly. The only "danger" (if that term can be applied to a vaccinated population) is that of missing an asymptomatic infection. There is at most a 48 hour window during which the viral load is small enough to avoid detection with a rapid test. the next day or the following day, and infection that is transmissible will be detected. Any player with two (or lets even give them three) negative tests consecutively will be no more at risk of transmitting as any other Cal student (especially any one who doesn't test daily).
There is no rational basis for the CoB to have instituted such draconian measures.
Not to discriminate necessarily, but a subgroup pf players including Chase Garbers with vaccination strict masking, and distancing should have been able to be cleared for the trip.
I don't disagree with you about the measures here, but we should be clear that it appears to be the Pac-12's standard as well as CoB in this case. CoB requires more widespread testing in the event of a positive test.
I'm getting the sense that Wilner knows the whole story but isn't sharing it. But he might not and is just opining based on public knowledge. I wish he'd just spill it so we at least know how to interpret this.
Per Cal stats: 8 students are in isolation and yet 24 players didn't play. WTF?? The stats are caddywhompis everywhere one looks on this case!! Oh and no one in quarantine.
The only reasonable conclusion I can come to is that all 24 players have the same girlfriend who unbeknownst to the players has COVID. Once the players make this connection, there could be issues in the locker room.
Thank you Avi for all of your tweets and posts on this issue, as this article mentions, it has been really difficult to figure out what is happening/what happened. One thing that I am still confused about, and could be the source of frustration within the program, is what happens with a false positive. Both the CoB Public Health Emergency Isolation Order PDF (https://www.cityofberkeley.info/uploadedFiles/Health_Human_Services/Public_Health/covid19/COB-health-order-n20-11-isolation.pdf) and the Pac-12 Covid-19 PDF (https://xs.pac-12.com/2021-08/Updated%20-%202021-22%20Pac-12%20Covid-19%20Guidelines%20for%20Return%20to%20Sporting%20Activity%20FINAL.pdf) have language that suggests the 10-day isolation is moot if you don't actually have COVID-19 following a positive test ("negative lab test that confirms they are not infected with COVID19" and "Discordant Results" in the two PDFs respectively). As others have pointed out, 24 true positives among vaccinated individuals is nearly impossible, but 24 true and false positives is more possible but would require further testing to determine which were true and which were false. If this really was the "fault of CoB" as has been claimed, this issue could be at the heart of it: If the CoB, in an abundance of caution, did not end the isolation period for those who tested positive but later tested negative (via PCR as per Pac-12 Guidelines) for COVID-19.
I know this is all still conjecture but I appreciate everyone's energy trying to figure out what happened.
Is this referring to the "Isolation" header? If so, that links to the PDF that I linked to which has a caveat that seems to imply that isolation can end once you are shown to be truly negative (I may be misinterpreting that statement).
I agree with your statements and my interpretation of the Pac12's policy and city's policy indicate that players can return to active status if the PCR test shows them virus free. If antigen/rapid tests are faulty and require a thorough PCR test to prove ACTUAL infection status, this is a reasonable approach. So why then wouldn't our players be allowed to return if they've passed the PCR tests prior to USC? That's conference and city policy, listed in the links you provided.
With everybody on the team virtually being vaccinated COVID 19 is now equivalent to the flue! But now you still people that want to interfere with other peoples lives and dictate what they do and how they do it with little to no regard for how their mandates will effect the individuals involved (the Cal Players in this case). All as a result of ignorant Karen’s who do not look at all the aspects, objectively weighing all sides of the equation, taking into account the consequences the COVID 19 protocols will have on people (Cal Players). It’s just such a shame that the players and coaches are being subjected to this.
Easy for you to say. If you have played football for any number of years you would know it’s not just a football game. There’s a lot more to playing football than just the game itself. Also, pretty sure the coaches and players would disagree with you as well.
So what exactly is the failure of City of Berkeley that everyone is mad at?
If the players really tested positive, then per Pac12 guidelines they can't travel with the team for the Arizona game, which seems like what happened. If Wilcox thinks some were false positive, how do we prove it was false positive?
Hot take, but people are blaming the City of Berkeley because it's an easy target--especially because it's easy to resort to tribalism and othering them--and because of comments from the team and media suggesting this is a "City of Berkeley thing" or "only in Berkeley would you have to deal with this".
There's no foolproof way to prove a false positive, but if you re-test those samples (directly and not a new sample) and they come back negative in addition to a new negative test, I would feel fairly comfortable with that.
In my defense (cause I was one of those people!) in a situation where there isn't clarity, you're darn right I'm going to default to the CoB doing something anti-university and anti-athletics. Until proven otherwise, it's my most likely scenario.
No blame from me. It's still early, so we'll see what the full picture is, but for now it seems like a lot of this falls on a certain reporter in the media who claimed this was the kind of thing that would only happen in Berkeley, but has yet to back up that statement.
Let's start with that on the entire campus only 8 are in isolation per the universities protocols. Why were 24 student-athletes not allowed to participate in the sport they love. Apparently Cal did not hold them back or see cause to isolate them. Or in new math is 8 now 24?
FYI, there were 32 people that tested positive through University Health Services last week (source: https://coronavirus.berkeley.edu/dashboard/). This doesn't include anyone who tested through City of Berkeley or outside testing sites. This is the whole campus though, not just student athletes. My (totally a guess) guess would be the initial positives (which were reportedly symptomatic, according to Wilcox on the KGO pregame show Saturday) tested positive through campus, and then once it hit the "Outbreak" level, it was mandated by CalOSHA that everyone be tested, and that was likely done by the City so wasn't included in these numbers.
Noted above, but I'll post again here in case others don't see it: The isolation/quarantine numbers are only those that live in campus housing. They do not track students living in private apartments.
After commenting above, I learned that there are reports some players submitted two negative results, which should indicate the player is free of covid and be allowed to play. If Wilcox is mad at that, then I can understand it. But does the Pac12 allow player to end isolation early at the submission of second negative test? or does it require a player to finish 10 days regardless?
Two negative tests do not indicate the player is free of the coronavirus. It indicates that the virus was not detectable. It's possible that the player is free of the virus, but it's also possible that the viral titer is too low to be detected. If someone was unable to find a needle in a haystack, that does not mean there is no needle in that haystack--just that it couldn't be found.
People will test positive for a while, even after they're no longer infectious or even have live, replicable virus. That's why we have a window where we don't even re-test positive patients for the OR (relying instead on symptomatology and likely duration of illness, similar to how we handle other viral illnesses). It's the downside of qualitative tests as opposed to quantitative ones.
Given the highly-vaccinated nature of the population in question (99%), 24 positives really sounds like a testing issue and I'd think the subsequent negatives might be more accurate.
But no one has actually given us all the details which is just aggravating everyone without providing resolution.
ah yes a fellow OR denizen...COVID sucks and apparently so does the football team's testing apparatus.
you know as well as I do that once things become protocolized there's no room for reason or thinking, and I bet that's a big part of what's going on here
Not the first time I've suspected that we're the same person. Lmao
I'm an anesthesiologist so you know we're particular about putting our snouts into people's covid holes. Most of our recent issues were due to people extrapolating (or not extrapolating) decisions from infection control. Once we got clarification, things made much more sense and we could match processes to the current reality. Hospital bureaucrats are really bad at epidemiology (among many other system-based disciplines) so wing it on policy more than you'd expect.
It also heavily depends on the type of test, which hasn't been shared with us. If a person shows two negative PCR tests after having tested positive, there is very little chance of an active covid infection. To use your hay stack analogy, it's like putting the haystack throw a metal detector and an x ray machine and not finding a needle. PCR tests are much more fallible in the early period of infection, however if a player has already tested positive they are presumable after that stage.
Of course, a lot of conjecture on my part. And of course, we don't actually know what kind of tests were performed.
As someone who works in R&D for disease detection and has run PCR more times than I can count, I wish I had your confidence in that reaction always proceeding without a hitch haha. Not saying you're wrong and I've never done their exact PCR for corona, but just that I've seen more than my share of PCRs fail inexplicably.
Fair enough, and I will always defer to those who know more than me. Appreciate it, Leland!
On the topic of policy frustration, though: the CoB order has this in it:
"Individuals with symptoms of COVID-19 or who have been informed that they
are presumptively positive for COVID-19 are no longer required to self-isolate if
they receive a negative lab test that confirms they are not infected with COVID19."
That reads to me like a test will get you 'released'. I can certainly understand frustration at the lack of clarity, whether it's from CoB or P12 or UC.
And if we're being honest, we know that university policy has wiggle room for the large sports because they are such a unique case compared to the student population at large.
To add to this, having a positive test followed by negative tests does not ensure the patient is virus-free. It's probably possible that the patient was infected (for that initial positive result) and then for the viral titer to lower in time as the body fights the infection.
Yeah, but my follow-up question to that is: once the viral load is low enough so as to not be picked up by those negative tests, is the person actually still dangerously infectious? Seems likely to me that they are not.
Not talking about Berkeley or Pac-12 policy there, just scientifically. That person seems very low risk at that point, no?
Right, and that gets us into a social/political question of how much risk is too much. I would argue that for young, healthy people who have tested negative twice (even after a previous positive test) and have been vaccinated there is no real harm in letting them do what they want.
Yes, but at that point as others have pointed out it becomes a philosophical question. How much risk is too much? At that point CTE is a bigger danger to the players than the virus (in that specific case, of a player that has recovered, no Covid-19 in general).
Wilcox and others are mad that we lost and are using Covid to deflect blame for that loss.
Furthermore, they are laying the blame or CoB because it is easier to blame other than to blame yourself for failing to recruit and develop a backup QB.
son of a gun...so hard to believe 36 positive tests in this cohort...wow. Hope we get a clear answer at some point in any case, just to clear the record. HIPA notwithstanding, it seems they could report aggregate info without naming individuals.
Are you reporting that they're symptomatic? I haven't seen that so want to verify. Obviously, being symptomatic removes the false-positive theory and isolating them from the rest of the team is absolutely the right move.
If we had cases that were symptomatic, then I'm even less bothered by this story. Quarantining is the right move despite negative results if your priority is to curb the spread of the virus.
Will we ever know what percentage of the the 36 were symptomatic? I recall Wilcox saying "a couple of players" were not feeling well at the beginning of the week.
Right but even an asymptomatic case means it is a breakthrough case, they just aren’t displaying or having any symptoms.
So 36 people tested positive for Covid, some of them were symptomatic and some asymptomatic, despite a 99% vaccination rate. What are the odds/statistics of that many breakthrough cases for a team 99% vaccinated?
If you're in large groups clustered together indoors not wearing masks, it's still quite possible to spread it. There's a reason we're all still wearing masks when we go to public places.
Yes, I realize it's possible, but the RATE of infection still seems really high for a 99% vaccinated cohort. Less than 10%, sure I could see it. 25-35%? Yikes.
Right but for a self reported 99% vaccination rate to have 36 breakthrough cases and positive test seems like a very high infection rate, even for delta.
I don’t want to go all conspiracy theory, QAnon here but this just doesn’t add up and then you see the lack of comments from Knowlton, it’s almost like he knows that 99% number isn’t accurate.
kinda confused...you seem to be saying that all 24 of those held back tested positive, is that right? or is it that one or more tested positive, and the others were in close contact? On that basis, there is a scenario where many more get restricted if a negative test does not clear them, but only contact and time is the measure.
We can all agree this was an abject failure on all accounts. The thing that was the most egregious was the lack of communication on any level. Whether the process was all false positives and they should've played or they were all real positives and they couldn't play, they along with us just need to know what the hell was going on. It seems like no one knew and never even had a chance to know, which is lunacy. You'd think communication would be at the forefront at the top of this when it was the last thing on any sanctioning body's mind.
I kind of think a reason the full scope of how many if any tested positive, etc. hasn't been made explicit is because that information doesn't help the convenient argument that the CoB is to blame. The football team's argument is beginning to look like a child's who complains that he had had to eat four stalks of broccoli when his sister only had to eat two. I'm sure our protocols are more excessive than anywhere in the country. That sucks for the football team, but hopefully in the end it's what's best for the community. I also know that had the team been more diligent with its own protocols, they probably wouldn't be in the situation they are in.
Exactly.
Avi I appreciate the work you have done uncovering a lot of this however I feel the need to make this abundantly clear:
Continuing to spin this as a failure of the coaching staff and leadership is ridiculous, and impossible to state as actual fact.
This is literally Covid's fault. That is it, that is where it starts and stops.
The players were 99% vaccinated, we live in one of the highest % vaccinated places in the country.
Everything else is pure speculation and I'd argue reckless speculation at that.
Vaccination does not necessarily preclude the spread of COVID, which is why the CDC still recommends in-door masking, something the football team doesn't seem to have been good at enforcing if recent social media has indicated.
Also vaccine effectiveness at reducing spread wanes after six months or so, so it's important to remain diligent with CDC protocols.
20+ cases at once is fairly wild.
Do we know that all 24 players and 12 coaches who were held out of last week's game had positive results? Could it be that they were identified as contact tracing, given that there were multiple negative players on/before Friday?
If they tested positive they would've been prevented from travelling if the positive test happened within ten days.
If they'd always tested negative they should have been cleared to travel. Contact tracing is no longer in effect if you're vaccinated.
Right. Wilcox was mad that there were multiple players with negative results who could not travel. So doesn't that mean those guys never tested positive to begin with?
From what I have read, they initially tested positive and then had a negative test. He was mad that they weren’t allowed to travel and was of the opinion that the first test as a false positive.
Okay, that's more understandable. If he thinks it was false positive, it makes sense why he was mad. But if they tested positive once, then not being able to travel within 10 days is something we have to accept, unless they tested negative twice, I think they should be allowed to travel.
BREAKING: Chase Garbers speaks and his take on everything that has gone down: https://twitter.com/ChaseGarbers/status/1457913852578779144
Wait, he's mad that they had to test for Covid? I thought the problem was players were negative but not allowed to play, but he doesn't say anything about it. Even if the test was forced, if they found positive cases which otherwise would not have been detected, isn't that a good thing? I don't get why he is mad that they were forced to take the Covid test.
Chase is mad he was forced to take a test and it came back positive and he was asymptomatic.
Then he is wrong to be mad at the University. If he was positive and they isolated him, that was a good thing. Of course from the football standpoint I really wish Garbers has played, but I don't see anything wrong with what has happened.
I agree.
Great the players should speak out given Knowlton has said jack shit!!
I think Knowlton hasn’t said anything because he does know what the exact issue is/was and that it isn’t the CoB, it’s an internal university issue and protocol.
From Chase's tweet, it doesn't seem like he knows exactly what his rights are. I don't know what his rights here are either, but then I'm not trying to play Cal football.
Chase, a real leader by tweet.
According to his tweet, the blame and fault seems to be directed at Cal and not CoB. Is that correct?
Seems what he's saying to me. Still the same principles however: fluctuating rules that aren't enforced on the same levels
Everyone was quick to blame CoB and was sure it was those evil CoB health officials when it seems pretty clear it was the university that required this.
The fluctuating rules seem to be coming from the university and not CoB. This looks bad for our AD.
Was the team doing all it could to follow precautions? If it wasn't...if the team got lax...COVID has shown it doesn't give a shit about rules and procedures.
These players got burned for being careless. But it was Wilcox who abetted an atmosphere where carelessness was overlooked, and ultimately enabled.
Starting with his choice last season to wear a gaiter on the sidelines instead of an actual mask (when gaiters had already been shown to be quite ineffective against COVID transmission), I've become convinced that Wilcox hasn't really done all he could to take these pandemic precautions seriously.
So yeah, go ahead, Justin, try to plead your case in front of the University. Good luck with that.
This is a coach who’s team has had multiple missed or blocked PATs or short FGs, so yeah, I would say he tends to overlook the small things.
For a coach who needs to win on the margins in order for his team to be successful, keeping all of his players eligible for games would be something you'd think he'd give a shit about. Wear a mask, continue to distance, stay the fuck away from that off-campus banger of a party for now...how hard would that have been for him to pushing a message like that through his coaches down through the players?
I mean, it's not like he's spending time prepping a backup QB...
Do we know who was being lax?
Ever wonder why we haven’t heard much from Knowlton? It’s because he knows exactly what happened and it looks like Cal is the one who enforced testing and quarantine and not CoB.
Are you saying players with Covid should have played?
I believe that is what he and Chase are saying and Wilcox probably agrees with that as well.
But if chase and all the players were positive it doesn’t really matter because they wouldn’t be allowed to play, I believe that is true if all schools. If a player is positive, they sit.
It’s effin Covid19’s fault. Fuck Covid19 and their mamas and their children.
Also, it would be enlightening to know the general incidence of positive tests in the whole Cal community on a weekly basis. Team activity shouldn't be restricted if the positivity rate (generally can be higher due to Delta) is no different than the general population.
Latest data should be available here: https://coronavirus.berkeley.edu/dashboard/
Therein lies the rub Avi, Cal is reporting 8 students in isolation and yet 24 players were out of the game. The data isn't adding up ANYWHERE.
Maybe the players aren't living on campus?
yuuuup something is amiss
Maybe I'm missing something glaringly obvious, but directly from the CoB's health order:
"Individuals with symptoms of COVID-19 or who have been informed that they
are presumptively positive for COVID-19 are no longer required to self-isolate if
they receive a negative lab test that confirms they are not infected with COVID19."
If I were Wilcox and saw this, and was told "No, this section doesn't apply to your players, only the previous section does" I would also be rightly pissed.
Additionally, there's a lot of talk of "negative test doesn't mean no Covid". That's technically true... however the missing caveat is that for a PCR test the largest danger is in the *early* stages of Covid. If a player tested positive, then days later tests negative repeatedly, and a PCR test does not detect the virus upon repeated samples, there is little chance they have Covid. Just my two cents.
This squares with those posting that it was UC's protocols not the COB
Now I'm second guessing myself... I don't know what to believe anymore lol.
As pointed out in the DBD thread, another thing that doesn't add up is the 24 positive tests despite 99% vaccination. Realistically, you'd expect maybe two breakthroughs, but 24 is crazy.
36 positive tests including the coaches. I "estimate" that that is 30% of the football staff and players! Statistically, on a 99% vax cohort, it requires further research: false-positives, testing technique, and on and on...
After the first positive test, players should have been sent to UHS on an urgent basis for a supervised set of repeat tests. That number of positive tests should never have been accepted in this population as definitive. The ball was clearly dropped.
Yeah, that definitely seems screwy from an epidemiological perspective. That vaxxed of a population would increase the likelihood of false positives. Testing error needs to be ruled out if the context is exactly as we interpret it. My frustration is that no one is providing the necessary details.
Or and tell me if you have heard of this before, some people are lying about their vaccination status and the program isn’t actually 99% vaccinated.
Nah, your vaccination status is in the state database. This is not a "I want to get into Pappy's with my friends" situation.
Not so crazy if you look at the decline in efficacy with J&J (and the other vaccines) six months out. We know 99% are fully vaccinated, but we don't know with which vaccine. I'm willing to guess though that most if not all have not yet been boosted, so they are at higher risk of getting covid due to the increased travel, increased contact, and decreasing vaccine protection. Again, just my guess.
See Mr. Taco's analysis above.
The comment that rapid tests have their drawbacks is easy, but basically false. They have drawbacks when used incorrectly. The only "danger" (if that term can be applied to a vaccinated population) is that of missing an asymptomatic infection. There is at most a 48 hour window during which the viral load is small enough to avoid detection with a rapid test. the next day or the following day, and infection that is transmissible will be detected. Any player with two (or lets even give them three) negative tests consecutively will be no more at risk of transmitting as any other Cal student (especially any one who doesn't test daily).
There is no rational basis for the CoB to have instituted such draconian measures.
Not to discriminate necessarily, but a subgroup pf players including Chase Garbers with vaccination strict masking, and distancing should have been able to be cleared for the trip.
I don't disagree with you about the measures here, but we should be clear that it appears to be the Pac-12's standard as well as CoB in this case. CoB requires more widespread testing in the event of a positive test.
I wouldn't doubt that the League and CoB are not using the latest data surrounding testing in vaccinated populations.
Wilner still claiming there was a contradiction in policy by Cal/CoB, but no details.
https://twitter.com/wilnerhotline/status/1457808863323852801
I'm getting the sense that Wilner knows the whole story but isn't sharing it. But he might not and is just opining based on public knowledge. I wish he'd just spill it so we at least know how to interpret this.
Per Cal stats: 8 students are in isolation and yet 24 players didn't play. WTF?? The stats are caddywhompis everywhere one looks on this case!! Oh and no one in quarantine.
The isolation/quarantine numbers are only those that live in campus housing. They do not track students living in private apartments.
Approximately 7,000 undergraduates live in student housing (source: https://admissions.berkeley.edu/housing#:~:text=Your%20Berkeley%20Experience%20Starts%20in%20the%20Residence%20Halls.&text=And%2C%20just%20to%20give%20you,%25%20%2D%20live%20in%20university%20housing.). Let's assume all 8 students currently in isolation are not football players (Oladejo is the only player I could reasonably assume likely lives in student housing) than 0.11% of students living on campus are in isolation. The football team cohort has 30% in isolation!!
This deserves looking into?!?
The only reasonable conclusion I can come to is that all 24 players have the same girlfriend who unbeknownst to the players has COVID. Once the players make this connection, there could be issues in the locker room.
They all share the same mouthpiece.
Yes, yes they do.
Cutting costs any way they can to pay for Memorial Stadium reno?
Good point, ty.
Thank you Avi for all of your tweets and posts on this issue, as this article mentions, it has been really difficult to figure out what is happening/what happened. One thing that I am still confused about, and could be the source of frustration within the program, is what happens with a false positive. Both the CoB Public Health Emergency Isolation Order PDF (https://www.cityofberkeley.info/uploadedFiles/Health_Human_Services/Public_Health/covid19/COB-health-order-n20-11-isolation.pdf) and the Pac-12 Covid-19 PDF (https://xs.pac-12.com/2021-08/Updated%20-%202021-22%20Pac-12%20Covid-19%20Guidelines%20for%20Return%20to%20Sporting%20Activity%20FINAL.pdf) have language that suggests the 10-day isolation is moot if you don't actually have COVID-19 following a positive test ("negative lab test that confirms they are not infected with COVID19" and "Discordant Results" in the two PDFs respectively). As others have pointed out, 24 true positives among vaccinated individuals is nearly impossible, but 24 true and false positives is more possible but would require further testing to determine which were true and which were false. If this really was the "fault of CoB" as has been claimed, this issue could be at the heart of it: If the CoB, in an abundance of caution, did not end the isolation period for those who tested positive but later tested negative (via PCR as per Pac-12 Guidelines) for COVID-19.
I know this is all still conjecture but I appreciate everyone's energy trying to figure out what happened.
Check the link above. This is what applies to university students, staff and employees in the event of a positive test: https://coronavirus.berkeley.edu/return-to-campus/positive-cases/
Is this referring to the "Isolation" header? If so, that links to the PDF that I linked to which has a caveat that seems to imply that isolation can end once you are shown to be truly negative (I may be misinterpreting that statement).
I agree with your statements and my interpretation of the Pac12's policy and city's policy indicate that players can return to active status if the PCR test shows them virus free. If antigen/rapid tests are faulty and require a thorough PCR test to prove ACTUAL infection status, this is a reasonable approach. So why then wouldn't our players be allowed to return if they've passed the PCR tests prior to USC? That's conference and city policy, listed in the links you provided.
With everybody on the team virtually being vaccinated COVID 19 is now equivalent to the flue! But now you still people that want to interfere with other peoples lives and dictate what they do and how they do it with little to no regard for how their mandates will effect the individuals involved (the Cal Players in this case). All as a result of ignorant Karen’s who do not look at all the aspects, objectively weighing all sides of the equation, taking into account the consequences the COVID 19 protocols will have on people (Cal Players). It’s just such a shame that the players and coaches are being subjected to this.
It’s just a football game for a program that is currently 3-6 and isn’t even relevant locally. I think the players and coaches will be okay.
Easy for you to say. If you have played football for any number of years you would know it’s not just a football game. There’s a lot more to playing football than just the game itself. Also, pretty sure the coaches and players would disagree with you as well.
So what exactly is the failure of City of Berkeley that everyone is mad at?
If the players really tested positive, then per Pac12 guidelines they can't travel with the team for the Arizona game, which seems like what happened. If Wilcox thinks some were false positive, how do we prove it was false positive?
Hot take, but people are blaming the City of Berkeley because it's an easy target--especially because it's easy to resort to tribalism and othering them--and because of comments from the team and media suggesting this is a "City of Berkeley thing" or "only in Berkeley would you have to deal with this".
There's no foolproof way to prove a false positive, but if you re-test those samples (directly and not a new sample) and they come back negative in addition to a new negative test, I would feel fairly comfortable with that.
In my defense (cause I was one of those people!) in a situation where there isn't clarity, you're darn right I'm going to default to the CoB doing something anti-university and anti-athletics. Until proven otherwise, it's my most likely scenario.
No blame from me. It's still early, so we'll see what the full picture is, but for now it seems like a lot of this falls on a certain reporter in the media who claimed this was the kind of thing that would only happen in Berkeley, but has yet to back up that statement.
So what is the CoB policy they changed at the last minute and our team failed to communicate?
Let's start with that on the entire campus only 8 are in isolation per the universities protocols. Why were 24 student-athletes not allowed to participate in the sport they love. Apparently Cal did not hold them back or see cause to isolate them. Or in new math is 8 now 24?
FYI, there were 32 people that tested positive through University Health Services last week (source: https://coronavirus.berkeley.edu/dashboard/). This doesn't include anyone who tested through City of Berkeley or outside testing sites. This is the whole campus though, not just student athletes. My (totally a guess) guess would be the initial positives (which were reportedly symptomatic, according to Wilcox on the KGO pregame show Saturday) tested positive through campus, and then once it hit the "Outbreak" level, it was mandated by CalOSHA that everyone be tested, and that was likely done by the City so wasn't included in these numbers.
Noted above, but I'll post again here in case others don't see it: The isolation/quarantine numbers are only those that live in campus housing. They do not track students living in private apartments.
After commenting above, I learned that there are reports some players submitted two negative results, which should indicate the player is free of covid and be allowed to play. If Wilcox is mad at that, then I can understand it. But does the Pac12 allow player to end isolation early at the submission of second negative test? or does it require a player to finish 10 days regardless?
Two negative tests do not indicate the player is free of the coronavirus. It indicates that the virus was not detectable. It's possible that the player is free of the virus, but it's also possible that the viral titer is too low to be detected. If someone was unable to find a needle in a haystack, that does not mean there is no needle in that haystack--just that it couldn't be found.
People will test positive for a while, even after they're no longer infectious or even have live, replicable virus. That's why we have a window where we don't even re-test positive patients for the OR (relying instead on symptomatology and likely duration of illness, similar to how we handle other viral illnesses). It's the downside of qualitative tests as opposed to quantitative ones.
Given the highly-vaccinated nature of the population in question (99%), 24 positives really sounds like a testing issue and I'd think the subsequent negatives might be more accurate.
But no one has actually given us all the details which is just aggravating everyone without providing resolution.
ah yes a fellow OR denizen...COVID sucks and apparently so does the football team's testing apparatus.
you know as well as I do that once things become protocolized there's no room for reason or thinking, and I bet that's a big part of what's going on here
Not the first time I've suspected that we're the same person. Lmao
I'm an anesthesiologist so you know we're particular about putting our snouts into people's covid holes. Most of our recent issues were due to people extrapolating (or not extrapolating) decisions from infection control. Once we got clarification, things made much more sense and we could match processes to the current reality. Hospital bureaucrats are really bad at epidemiology (among many other system-based disciplines) so wing it on policy more than you'd expect.
you do, in fact, have my favorite username in all of internet Caldom
don't even get me started on hospital bureaucracies let alone city of berkeley!
Statistics and probability not absolutes are part of modernity.
It also heavily depends on the type of test, which hasn't been shared with us. If a person shows two negative PCR tests after having tested positive, there is very little chance of an active covid infection. To use your hay stack analogy, it's like putting the haystack throw a metal detector and an x ray machine and not finding a needle. PCR tests are much more fallible in the early period of infection, however if a player has already tested positive they are presumable after that stage.
Of course, a lot of conjecture on my part. And of course, we don't actually know what kind of tests were performed.
As someone who works in R&D for disease detection and has run PCR more times than I can count, I wish I had your confidence in that reaction always proceeding without a hitch haha. Not saying you're wrong and I've never done their exact PCR for corona, but just that I've seen more than my share of PCRs fail inexplicably.
Fair enough, and I will always defer to those who know more than me. Appreciate it, Leland!
On the topic of policy frustration, though: the CoB order has this in it:
"Individuals with symptoms of COVID-19 or who have been informed that they
are presumptively positive for COVID-19 are no longer required to self-isolate if
they receive a negative lab test that confirms they are not infected with COVID19."
That reads to me like a test will get you 'released'. I can certainly understand frustration at the lack of clarity, whether it's from CoB or P12 or UC.
And if we're being honest, we know that university policy has wiggle room for the large sports because they are such a unique case compared to the student population at large.
To add to this, having a positive test followed by negative tests does not ensure the patient is virus-free. It's probably possible that the patient was infected (for that initial positive result) and then for the viral titer to lower in time as the body fights the infection.
Yeah, but my follow-up question to that is: once the viral load is low enough so as to not be picked up by those negative tests, is the person actually still dangerously infectious? Seems likely to me that they are not.
Not talking about Berkeley or Pac-12 policy there, just scientifically. That person seems very low risk at that point, no?
I agree that they are very low risk but I suppose people would still view that as a risk.
Right, and that gets us into a social/political question of how much risk is too much. I would argue that for young, healthy people who have tested negative twice (even after a previous positive test) and have been vaccinated there is no real harm in letting them do what they want.
Yes, but at that point as others have pointed out it becomes a philosophical question. How much risk is too much? At that point CTE is a bigger danger to the players than the virus (in that specific case, of a player that has recovered, no Covid-19 in general).
I see. So now I'm more confused. What is everyone mad about?
Wilcox and others are mad that we lost and are using Covid to deflect blame for that loss.
Furthermore, they are laying the blame or CoB because it is easier to blame other than to blame yourself for failing to recruit and develop a backup QB.
In fairness, it seems like they were already mad before the game happened.
son of a gun...so hard to believe 36 positive tests in this cohort...wow. Hope we get a clear answer at some point in any case, just to clear the record. HIPA notwithstanding, it seems they could report aggregate info without naming individuals.
So what I gather and am assuming:
1. 36 people tested positive and couldn’t travel.
2. Even if they later tested negative, they would still have to follow the 7 or 10 day quarantine, which means they couldn’t play against Arizona.
3. It seems that the teams actual vaccination rate is lower than 99%.
4. Wikcox and staff still haven’t recruited or developed a decent backup QB.
The breakthrough cases were symptomatic and vaccinated, triggering outbreak protocol and leading to the asymptomatic positive cases.
I'm fairly certain our vaccination rate is 99%. This stuff is pretty easily verifiable and checked.
Are you reporting that they're symptomatic? I haven't seen that so want to verify. Obviously, being symptomatic removes the false-positive theory and isolating them from the rest of the team is absolutely the right move.
If we had cases that were symptomatic, then I'm even less bothered by this story. Quarantining is the right move despite negative results if your priority is to curb the spread of the virus.
Will we ever know what percentage of the the 36 were symptomatic? I recall Wilcox saying "a couple of players" were not feeling well at the beginning of the week.
Right but even an asymptomatic case means it is a breakthrough case, they just aren’t displaying or having any symptoms.
So 36 people tested positive for Covid, some of them were symptomatic and some asymptomatic, despite a 99% vaccination rate. What are the odds/statistics of that many breakthrough cases for a team 99% vaccinated?
Yeah, that's why I was concerned about how well the football team is handling indoor mask policy.
Even if nobody wore masks at all that positivity rate seems unusually high, for a 99% vaccinated group.
If you're in large groups clustered together indoors not wearing masks, it's still quite possible to spread it. There's a reason we're all still wearing masks when we go to public places.
Yes, I realize it's possible, but the RATE of infection still seems really high for a 99% vaccinated cohort. Less than 10%, sure I could see it. 25-35%? Yikes.
Right but for a self reported 99% vaccination rate to have 36 breakthrough cases and positive test seems like a very high infection rate, even for delta.
I don’t want to go all conspiracy theory, QAnon here but this just doesn’t add up and then you see the lack of comments from Knowlton, it’s almost like he knows that 99% number isn’t accurate.
kinda confused...you seem to be saying that all 24 of those held back tested positive, is that right? or is it that one or more tested positive, and the others were in close contact? On that basis, there is a scenario where many more get restricted if a negative test does not clear them, but only contact and time is the measure.
It seems current protocols indicate vaccinated individuals exposed who test negative do not have to isolate