Right when the sunshine started pumping again, Covid had to come along and fuck things up. I was so pumped all week to watch that Arizona game. Go Bears! #TedfordStatue
The one thing that seems apparent is that the coronavirus has likely evolved enough that it will be endemic (without a sustained global drive on the level of smallpox and polio). Vaccination is our best weapon by far but isn't enough to prevent an outbreak. Additionally, maximum containment efforts like in China and New Zealand have also been breached. Delta did it.
Pandemics rarely end, per se. They just become less deadly or harmful. We DO have the technology to help with that (vaccination and other therapeutics). Covid will just be treated like any other viral illness. The "it's just the flu" people are morons but this will probably the overall approach in 2022 in places like the US with reasonably high vaccination rates.
My 2022 prediction: We will not be testing asymptomatic (boosted) vaccinated players next year. Or, if we do for data collection reasons, they would still be eligible to play as their symptoms allow.
I do follow the science. And the evidence is clear, consistent, and plentiful. Masks work. They slow the spread of transmission, and are one of the easiest ways of keeping COVID numbers down.
What science are U following?? I think masks have been an absolute godsend to get back to doing normal things. I suspect they have saved more lives than we’ll ever know.
"Wilcox also suggested that mask compliance has not been 100% in any walk of life. “Do we have to remind people from time to time to put their mask on? Have I been told that? Yeah, absolutely."
Why have you been told that, Coach? At what point did you forget we're still in the throes of a pandemic? (Because you're now best buds with Monica Ghandi, by chance? Between her and Aaron Rodgers, not a great look for Cal alums and COVID right now, but I digress...)
In my LA County 3rd grade classroom, failure to wear a mask while indoors would make me subject to warnings, with repeated violations making me possibly receive disciplinary action. And I'm the union rep at my school site, so I know I have to set an example (because, you know, it's what people in that position should do, like a coach might?).
Plus, I don't want to get sick after being around the cooties of 24 unvaccinated 3rd graders. I've been vaxxed and boosted, but I could still carry it, so they don't want to get it from me either.
And when their mask is not worn correctly, I remind them. I replace broken masks with a supply I have in my room provided by my school district. We remind each other. They move away from each other while eating their snacks outside. And when they're done eating they put it back on. The kids also are aware of the concept of social distancing, because my grade level partners and myself have explained it to them. Over and over again, because it's necessary.
It's really simple, Coach. When you're inside--wear your f-----g mask. How hard is that?
And telling your players isn't hard either. As the former Oriole manager Paul Richards once said, "Tell a ballplayer something a thousand times, then tell him again, because that might be the time he'll understand something."
I have to remind 8 and 9 year olds every day to do the right thing and the smart thing, because I need to keep them--and me--as safe as I can. It's become second nature at this point, because it has to be. And it's as darn near as close to 100 percent as I can make it.
It's a pity that doing the same for kids 10 years older than my 3rd graders is proving to be such a burden on poor Coach.
I’m trying not to be pessimistic but what kid is going to want to play football at Cal with the possibility of this happening again in future seasons when they can go play on a team in the SEC, ACC, Big12 or Big10 without this kind of nonsense. I’m afraid this could affect recruiting severely.
It's only nonsense in the sense that Cal is pretty much the only school in the country that has had it's season drastically impacted by COVID, for a second consecutive year. Clearly, though, the program may be doing something wrong....maybe?
The science is not nonsense...the fact that it appears to be having a major, adverse affect on Cal, specificlally, is. The optics are brutal.
I would tend to agree, though to lose 1/3rd of the season to COVID, when no other program in the country is having similar troubles, says different.
That said, this season was disappointing even before the COVID outbreak, so to pin it all on the mess of the last week is wrong. Moving forward, though, this figures to be a yearly concern, and fodder for plenty of negative recruiting.
Yeah I agree this is not good for recruiting. Even if it's the right thing, I know kids want to play football, especially if they feel they are healthy. As for the Arizona game, we can't blame Covid for the terrible QB play that lost the game. This was a lost season so I hope next year we play clean football.
Exactly....with even remotely competent play from a QB that had experience starting college football games and they get a win and are in very good position for a bowl, despite the disappointing results earlier in the season, and despite the COVID disruption.
They are not a threat to one another but it is unclear if they are a threat to the wider community, particularly the immunocompromised. There is also the possibility of breakthrough cases if variants are spreading to a high degree.
"Once a few cases were detected, the entire Cal football program was directed to test using highly sensitive PCR machines, which are considered the gold standard but can detect inactive COVID virus dating back 90 days."
If inactive virus is what they're picking up (and if a large number of the positive cases were asymptomatic I would bet they are), then it does seem like the outbreak is not a threat to the wider community. I'd also argue that if the wider community has as high a vaccination rate as Berkeley does, there isn't really a threat to public health either, at least not within the city.
I like the argument made by Dr. Gandhi here, which is that public policy needs to shift to vaccination rate + hospitalizations as the key metrics.
This is where Cal needed to get clearer advice from University Health, because they never had regular testing prior to the outbreak. If they had regular testing they could've likely picked up on positive checks of these inactives and likely mitigated the chances of an outbreak.
It's clear from Wilcox that those conversations never happened.
Yes. Even though I might disagree with Berkeley/UHS procedure on handling their response to positive cases within the program, the AD should have known about what that would be and have kept up a stronger testing program to keep positive infections at bay.
I believe Stanford has a much more robust regular testing program which probably would pick up any such "outbreaks" before they could spread throughout the team. Cal seemed to be acting like they were under the NFL's procedure.
So with more data points coming out in almost two years into pandemic, maybe there needs to be adjustments on rules and policies for NCAA / Pac12, where it's not simple Positive you isolate 10 days. It's difficult as research is always developing but by next football season I hope we won't have to go through this mess again, that there's some better, yet safe policy established.
She eloquently stated what the players are feeling: "Vaccinated, asymptomatic, not a threat to themselves or others". Therein lies the players' frustrations. It would be helpful to know how many were, in fact, symptomatic.
I’m a confused about players being frustrated about being required to be tested by UHS. It seems like they thought that they shouldn’t be tested if they were vaccinated. Had they not been tested, they would be playing. Unfortunately, they do have COVID and should not be playing and exposing others. Do they somehow think that it is better not knowing?
According to Monica Gandhi, who is a leading infectious disease expert at UC San Francisco, you do not need to do "mass testing of vaccinated people." I think there is genuine disagreement among health experts about what it means to "have COVID-19," at least as I understand her. I'm curious to know what other people think about this, not that it changes anything practically for Cal football: https://www.marinij.com/2021/11/11/covid-expert-rips-berkeley-public-health-response-to-cals-case-count-it-is-not-an-outbreak/
Is she extreme? It seems like her recommendation is what other programs have de facto been doing, even if it's not what is explicitly written down in the conference recommendations. In that context it's Cal's actions that were extreme.
I am no expert, but if I test positive (while vaccinated), I am not going into the office for work and putting others at risk.
I guess somewhat understand that they are upset that the were required to be tested in the first place, but they have COVID and probably shouldn’t be playing with it. If the cops found cocaine in your car, you have a right to be upset for the searching of your car, but you are still going to jail.
They don't "have" COVID in the sense of having the disease if they're vaccinated, are asymptomatic, test positive once followed by negative tests. I THINK that is what confused some of the players. On the other hand, if you're vaccinated and you're symptomatic and you test positive, then you have a breakthrough case. Part of the problem is this is, at some level, all speculative, since due to student privacy we're speculating based on cryptic messages, etc.
The problem is they think it is okay to play with Covid, so that's why they are upset they were forced to test. I think it's ridiculous but I now understand why they are upset.
Bequette thinks they should not test so that they can play (even with covid)
Luc Bequette @LucBequette · Nov 8
Because there’s no need. College football is 150 years old and everyone has played sick before. Every other city across the nation with a D1 football program seems to understand this and does not see a need to test their teams.
If I can piece it together, I think the complaint isn't about being required to test, it's that for other student groups on campus, or for other football programs across the country, such widespread testing was NOT required. At other places, if you were vaccinated and showed no symptoms, you didn't have to test. But everyone on the Cal Football team had to test. The UC and/or CoB cast a wide net in considering everyone on the team a "close contact" of the symptomatic ones, in a way other schools/municipalities didn't.
I don't have all the info, but that's my guess as to the root of the complaint. They feel singled out.
My kids get tested weekly. And stay home if they so much as sneeze. And mask indoors at school, always; if they do much as want a drink of water, they go outside. Not singled out.
Are your kids in college at Berkeley or in another Division 1 football program? If not, they aren't the comparison points for the players feeling singled out.
Nope. But point is plenty of people are asked to test regularly, even if they are doing fall less than playing D1 football. If 3rd and 6th graders can be tested, so can athletes at Cal. If you want to do the least because you suspect others may be doing the a little less, then maybe you aren’t setting the standards we’d want a flagship program to set. Think we can be careful, protect our student athletes, and still compete. This is always what we’ve sought to do. We’re Cal.
3rd and 6th graders (until very recently) couldn't be vaccinated. That means it's more reasonable to test them. Among a highly vaccinated population it's probably not necessary unless people are showing symptoms.
Reading between all the lines through this entire debacle, it sounds like the football program took for granted its 99% vaccination status as justification to willfully disregard not necessarily all, but at least some of the public health protocols in place that may have prevented this shit show from happening. And when you have unvaccinated players and staff, there its no excuse for the lapses in safety and health we have witnessed over the last few weeks. Wilcox admitted in his press conference they have been lax in QC within the program. Because I'm not seeing anyone masked on the sidelines which should be the bare minimum to do in the public light.
The 2 unvaccinated players previously had COVID. I can verify one had it prior to camp. I can also verify that one is not playing this year although he is involved in meetings ~ but not practice.
Without debating the specifics of UC or CoB's policy, I think there is a good scientific argument that in a region with high vax rates, "cases" of COVID are not really a threat to public health. Vaccine protection eventually wanes against preventing infection but remains strong against severe illness or death.
So in a place like Berkeley with better than 90% vaccination, the virus might be present in people's systems but not really doing anything other than causing a few sniffles. This seems like a reasonable conclusion to me and possibly the ideal endgame for COVID-19 becoming endemic. The current policy seems to assume that any presence of the virus is a grave danger.
The counterargument is that the football program is 99% vaccinated, but they aren't living in a bubble. Are any of them visiting grandparents or an immunocompromised friend or family member? Trevon Clark has a young son who appears to be too young to be vaccinated, do an outbreak puts him at risk.
This whole pandemic has been about taking safety precautions to protect others just as much—if not more—than yourself.
And Cal football did just that with a 99% vaccination rate. Well above the national average and a majority of states. Question is, does public policy i.e. CoB need to adjust. Apparently the CDC does not recommend testing, in this instant case.
The worst thing about the story is that people who are already hesitant or anti-vax will see the 99% vaccination rate and the 40 cases and conclude or use to argue that getting vaccinated is ineffective or not effective enough to be worthwhile for them.
Cal Football's vaccination rate has nothing to do with the population around the players, as I discussed.
CDC guidelines actually does recommend testing—for vaccinated individuals, 5–7 days after close contact with the symptomatic individual who first tested positive. Given the allegations from Berkeley Public Health that this person did not stay home and that the football team was unmasked indoors (as evidenced to some degree in videos and social media), this could have extended to a large number of players who needed to be tested.
COVID still exists. Breakthrough cases exist. Vaccinated people still get COVID. And when there's unvaccinated people within your own program, any responsible leader/manager will do whatever is necessary to protect the overall health of the program regardless of vaccination status.
Didn't see the video but reading the quotes, I'm impressed by Wilcox's composure. He says the right things.
Let's focus on player's health and football. No more complaining. When you have 44 players testing positive, it's not a matter of lack of communication anymore. Let's get all the players healthy and play football.
"The Cal head coach did say he had never been consulted on a lack of institutional control regarding COVID mandates. 'I have never had a meeting about the egregious non-compliance of our players.'"
I think what he's saying there is that there may have been some slip-ups here and there where folks had to be reminded of the protocols, but he's suggesting that there wasn't such a widespread lack of compliance from the program that he had to hold a disciplinary meeting about it to reinforce the protocols. He's suggesting it wasn't a large scale non-compliance issue from his perspective. Which, maybe so, but then how did this outbreak happen?
Yes. I teach at a university where there is an indoor mask mandate. I have to remind students in the hallway I pass through to get to my classroom, that they need to wear their mask. Even if they aren't my students, I say this to them sometimes, because I find it frustrating. At other times, I don't say anything, because I can't and won't always be trying to get people to follow protocols, and I won't call the campus police on a student whose mask is below their nose.
I'm really not sure what to make of this. Maybe shortsighted of me (and feel free to call me out on this as it's possibly a dumb thing to be concerned about), but I'm afraid of this tanking the team.
If Wilcox leaves because of this and if a bunch of players transfer out I'm not sure if the team's reputation will survive for a while. We'd be in for struggles
Or if Wilcox is canned for this? Been reluctant to criticize the guy, and I’ve been pulling for him to pull it together, but seems like a little loose oversight here, and a tighter ship might have withstood a few mistakes
Agreed. The fallout / repercussions whatever you want to call it are yet to come. The worse case scenario likely decimates Cal football for years. The best case is that somehow Wilcox pulls a Charmin Smith and keeps the current team intact with a salvage of some sort of the recruiting class. In-between those 2 scenarios is a plethora possibilities. TBD.
Based on Wilner's latest post stating the "(Not going to be all that) Big Game" is on track, and the USC game has been rescheduled, and the criticism from a COVID expert ripping Berkeley Public Health, it could be that the greatest "hit" from this might be the shorthanded loss (and poor showing) in Tucson.
Let's start with the fact that they used a photo of Cal football from (I think) 2008, nowhere close to the current team. The other big claim here is directly contradicted by their own point. Dr. Gandhi says that vaccinated people who are showing no symptoms are very unlikely to transmit the virus. The UC Davis study cited in this article specifically states the following:
"Our study does not provide information on infectiousness,” Michelmore said. “Transmission will be influenced by several factors, not just vaccination status and viral load.”
So it's not a contradiction of what Gandhi said. Viral load is not the only factor for infectiousness. If I had to guess at why the studies Gandhi cited showed far reduced transmission among vaccinated people, it's that probably the vaccines allow the body to "deactivate" the virus faster. So there might still be virus in a person's body, but it's not able to attack or spread any longer. That's just me as a layperson trying to square the available evidence, not claiming any specific expertise.
Right when the sunshine started pumping again, Covid had to come along and fuck things up. I was so pumped all week to watch that Arizona game. Go Bears! #TedfordStatue
I felt the need to intervene in some comments. But it seems the comments have modded themselves.
CONTINUE ON DEAR BROTHERS AND SISTERS OF CALIFORNIA.
The one thing that seems apparent is that the coronavirus has likely evolved enough that it will be endemic (without a sustained global drive on the level of smallpox and polio). Vaccination is our best weapon by far but isn't enough to prevent an outbreak. Additionally, maximum containment efforts like in China and New Zealand have also been breached. Delta did it.
Pandemics rarely end, per se. They just become less deadly or harmful. We DO have the technology to help with that (vaccination and other therapeutics). Covid will just be treated like any other viral illness. The "it's just the flu" people are morons but this will probably the overall approach in 2022 in places like the US with reasonably high vaccination rates.
My 2022 prediction: We will not be testing asymptomatic (boosted) vaccinated players next year. Or, if we do for data collection reasons, they would still be eligible to play as their symptoms allow.
If you follow the science, masks are about as useful as a screen door on a submarine.
I do follow the science. And the evidence is clear, consistent, and plentiful. Masks work. They slow the spread of transmission, and are one of the easiest ways of keeping COVID numbers down.
What science are U following?? I think masks have been an absolute godsend to get back to doing normal things. I suspect they have saved more lives than we’ll ever know.
"Wilcox also suggested that mask compliance has not been 100% in any walk of life. “Do we have to remind people from time to time to put their mask on? Have I been told that? Yeah, absolutely."
Why have you been told that, Coach? At what point did you forget we're still in the throes of a pandemic? (Because you're now best buds with Monica Ghandi, by chance? Between her and Aaron Rodgers, not a great look for Cal alums and COVID right now, but I digress...)
In my LA County 3rd grade classroom, failure to wear a mask while indoors would make me subject to warnings, with repeated violations making me possibly receive disciplinary action. And I'm the union rep at my school site, so I know I have to set an example (because, you know, it's what people in that position should do, like a coach might?).
Plus, I don't want to get sick after being around the cooties of 24 unvaccinated 3rd graders. I've been vaxxed and boosted, but I could still carry it, so they don't want to get it from me either.
And when their mask is not worn correctly, I remind them. I replace broken masks with a supply I have in my room provided by my school district. We remind each other. They move away from each other while eating their snacks outside. And when they're done eating they put it back on. The kids also are aware of the concept of social distancing, because my grade level partners and myself have explained it to them. Over and over again, because it's necessary.
It's really simple, Coach. When you're inside--wear your f-----g mask. How hard is that?
And telling your players isn't hard either. As the former Oriole manager Paul Richards once said, "Tell a ballplayer something a thousand times, then tell him again, because that might be the time he'll understand something."
I have to remind 8 and 9 year olds every day to do the right thing and the smart thing, because I need to keep them--and me--as safe as I can. It's become second nature at this point, because it has to be. And it's as darn near as close to 100 percent as I can make it.
It's a pity that doing the same for kids 10 years older than my 3rd graders is proving to be such a burden on poor Coach.
I’m trying not to be pessimistic but what kid is going to want to play football at Cal with the possibility of this happening again in future seasons when they can go play on a team in the SEC, ACC, Big12 or Big10 without this kind of nonsense. I’m afraid this could affect recruiting severely.
why is this a nonsense?
What Jimmy Chitwood said.
It's only nonsense in the sense that Cal is pretty much the only school in the country that has had it's season drastically impacted by COVID, for a second consecutive year. Clearly, though, the program may be doing something wrong....maybe?
The science is not nonsense...the fact that it appears to be having a major, adverse affect on Cal, specificlally, is. The optics are brutal.
I, in fact, think Cal is doing the right thing and doing the best to keep players and the community safe.
I would tend to agree, though to lose 1/3rd of the season to COVID, when no other program in the country is having similar troubles, says different.
That said, this season was disappointing even before the COVID outbreak, so to pin it all on the mess of the last week is wrong. Moving forward, though, this figures to be a yearly concern, and fodder for plenty of negative recruiting.
Yeah I agree this is not good for recruiting. Even if it's the right thing, I know kids want to play football, especially if they feel they are healthy. As for the Arizona game, we can't blame Covid for the terrible QB play that lost the game. This was a lost season so I hope next year we play clean football.
Exactly....with even remotely competent play from a QB that had experience starting college football games and they get a win and are in very good position for a bowl, despite the disappointing results earlier in the season, and despite the COVID disruption.
At some point, protocols, and not just at Berkeley, will shift. At least that's the optimistic takeaway I had reading this https://www.marinij.com/2021/11/11/covid-expert-rips-berkeley-public-health-response-to-cals-case-count-it-is-not-an-outbreak/
They are not a threat to one another but it is unclear if they are a threat to the wider community, particularly the immunocompromised. There is also the possibility of breakthrough cases if variants are spreading to a high degree.
This is the key bit for me:
"Once a few cases were detected, the entire Cal football program was directed to test using highly sensitive PCR machines, which are considered the gold standard but can detect inactive COVID virus dating back 90 days."
If inactive virus is what they're picking up (and if a large number of the positive cases were asymptomatic I would bet they are), then it does seem like the outbreak is not a threat to the wider community. I'd also argue that if the wider community has as high a vaccination rate as Berkeley does, there isn't really a threat to public health either, at least not within the city.
I like the argument made by Dr. Gandhi here, which is that public policy needs to shift to vaccination rate + hospitalizations as the key metrics.
https://www.audacy.com/kcbsradio/news/national/health-expert-calls-for-end-of-mass-testing-of-vaxxed-people
This is where Cal needed to get clearer advice from University Health, because they never had regular testing prior to the outbreak. If they had regular testing they could've likely picked up on positive checks of these inactives and likely mitigated the chances of an outbreak.
It's clear from Wilcox that those conversations never happened.
Yes. Even though I might disagree with Berkeley/UHS procedure on handling their response to positive cases within the program, the AD should have known about what that would be and have kept up a stronger testing program to keep positive infections at bay.
I believe Stanford has a much more robust regular testing program which probably would pick up any such "outbreaks" before they could spread throughout the team. Cal seemed to be acting like they were under the NFL's procedure.
So with more data points coming out in almost two years into pandemic, maybe there needs to be adjustments on rules and policies for NCAA / Pac12, where it's not simple Positive you isolate 10 days. It's difficult as research is always developing but by next football season I hope we won't have to go through this mess again, that there's some better, yet safe policy established.
I expect there will be adjustments made. Public policy is often slow to respond to new evidence like this (understandably so).
She eloquently stated what the players are feeling: "Vaccinated, asymptomatic, not a threat to themselves or others". Therein lies the players' frustrations. It would be helpful to know how many were, in fact, symptomatic.
I had the same sense when I read it. And you can hear some of that lingering "I still don't get it" in Daltoso's comments at the presser.
I’m a confused about players being frustrated about being required to be tested by UHS. It seems like they thought that they shouldn’t be tested if they were vaccinated. Had they not been tested, they would be playing. Unfortunately, they do have COVID and should not be playing and exposing others. Do they somehow think that it is better not knowing?
According to Monica Gandhi, who is a leading infectious disease expert at UC San Francisco, you do not need to do "mass testing of vaccinated people." I think there is genuine disagreement among health experts about what it means to "have COVID-19," at least as I understand her. I'm curious to know what other people think about this, not that it changes anything practically for Cal football: https://www.marinij.com/2021/11/11/covid-expert-rips-berkeley-public-health-response-to-cals-case-count-it-is-not-an-outbreak/
Gandhi is a bit on the extreme side here. Even the Pac-12 recommends quarantining if you test positive, regardless of vaccination status.
Is she extreme? It seems like her recommendation is what other programs have de facto been doing, even if it's not what is explicitly written down in the conference recommendations. In that context it's Cal's actions that were extreme.
I am no expert, but if I test positive (while vaccinated), I am not going into the office for work and putting others at risk.
I guess somewhat understand that they are upset that the were required to be tested in the first place, but they have COVID and probably shouldn’t be playing with it. If the cops found cocaine in your car, you have a right to be upset for the searching of your car, but you are still going to jail.
They don't "have" COVID in the sense of having the disease if they're vaccinated, are asymptomatic, test positive once followed by negative tests. I THINK that is what confused some of the players. On the other hand, if you're vaccinated and you're symptomatic and you test positive, then you have a breakthrough case. Part of the problem is this is, at some level, all speculative, since due to student privacy we're speculating based on cryptic messages, etc.
The problem is they think it is okay to play with Covid, so that's why they are upset they were forced to test. I think it's ridiculous but I now understand why they are upset.
Bequette thinks they should not test so that they can play (even with covid)
Luc Bequette @LucBequette · Nov 8
Because there’s no need. College football is 150 years old and everyone has played sick before. Every other city across the nation with a D1 football program seems to understand this and does not see a need to test their teams.
https://twitter.com/LucBequette/status/1457957054610509826?s=20
And there is this: https://www.marinij.com/2021/11/11/covid-expert-rips-berkeley-public-health-response-to-cals-case-count-it-is-not-an-outbreak/
If I can piece it together, I think the complaint isn't about being required to test, it's that for other student groups on campus, or for other football programs across the country, such widespread testing was NOT required. At other places, if you were vaccinated and showed no symptoms, you didn't have to test. But everyone on the Cal Football team had to test. The UC and/or CoB cast a wide net in considering everyone on the team a "close contact" of the symptomatic ones, in a way other schools/municipalities didn't.
I don't have all the info, but that's my guess as to the root of the complaint. They feel singled out.
My kids get tested weekly. And stay home if they so much as sneeze. And mask indoors at school, always; if they do much as want a drink of water, they go outside. Not singled out.
Are your kids in college at Berkeley or in another Division 1 football program? If not, they aren't the comparison points for the players feeling singled out.
Nope. But point is plenty of people are asked to test regularly, even if they are doing fall less than playing D1 football. If 3rd and 6th graders can be tested, so can athletes at Cal. If you want to do the least because you suspect others may be doing the a little less, then maybe you aren’t setting the standards we’d want a flagship program to set. Think we can be careful, protect our student athletes, and still compete. This is always what we’ve sought to do. We’re Cal.
3rd and 6th graders (until very recently) couldn't be vaccinated. That means it's more reasonable to test them. Among a highly vaccinated population it's probably not necessary unless people are showing symptoms.
Reading between all the lines through this entire debacle, it sounds like the football program took for granted its 99% vaccination status as justification to willfully disregard not necessarily all, but at least some of the public health protocols in place that may have prevented this shit show from happening. And when you have unvaccinated players and staff, there its no excuse for the lapses in safety and health we have witnessed over the last few weeks. Wilcox admitted in his press conference they have been lax in QC within the program. Because I'm not seeing anyone masked on the sidelines which should be the bare minimum to do in the public light.
The 2 unvaccinated players previously had COVID. I can verify one had it prior to camp. I can also verify that one is not playing this year although he is involved in meetings ~ but not practice.
There are documented cases of people getting COVID multiple times. Being "immunized" isn't an excuse for lax health and safety protocols.
Without debating the specifics of UC or CoB's policy, I think there is a good scientific argument that in a region with high vax rates, "cases" of COVID are not really a threat to public health. Vaccine protection eventually wanes against preventing infection but remains strong against severe illness or death.
https://twitter.com/MonicaGandhi9/status/1458662378283757569
So in a place like Berkeley with better than 90% vaccination, the virus might be present in people's systems but not really doing anything other than causing a few sniffles. This seems like a reasonable conclusion to me and possibly the ideal endgame for COVID-19 becoming endemic. The current policy seems to assume that any presence of the virus is a grave danger.
The counterargument is that the football program is 99% vaccinated, but they aren't living in a bubble. Are any of them visiting grandparents or an immunocompromised friend or family member? Trevon Clark has a young son who appears to be too young to be vaccinated, do an outbreak puts him at risk.
This whole pandemic has been about taking safety precautions to protect others just as much—if not more—than yourself.
And Cal football did just that with a 99% vaccination rate. Well above the national average and a majority of states. Question is, does public policy i.e. CoB need to adjust. Apparently the CDC does not recommend testing, in this instant case.
The worst thing about the story is that people who are already hesitant or anti-vax will see the 99% vaccination rate and the 40 cases and conclude or use to argue that getting vaccinated is ineffective or not effective enough to be worthwhile for them.
Cal Football's vaccination rate has nothing to do with the population around the players, as I discussed.
CDC guidelines actually does recommend testing—for vaccinated individuals, 5–7 days after close contact with the symptomatic individual who first tested positive. Given the allegations from Berkeley Public Health that this person did not stay home and that the football team was unmasked indoors (as evidenced to some degree in videos and social media), this could have extended to a large number of players who needed to be tested.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/testing/diagnostic-testing.html#who-should-get-tested
“Not a threat” but never zero.
It will never be zero.
And this is really the point-the question is how to move from a pandemic to an endemic condition.
Then the threat still exists.
COVID still exists. Breakthrough cases exist. Vaccinated people still get COVID. And when there's unvaccinated people within your own program, any responsible leader/manager will do whatever is necessary to protect the overall health of the program regardless of vaccination status.
Are you saying that Wilcox didn't do that?
Didn't see the video but reading the quotes, I'm impressed by Wilcox's composure. He says the right things.
Let's focus on player's health and football. No more complaining. When you have 44 players testing positive, it's not a matter of lack of communication anymore. Let's get all the players healthy and play football.
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"The Cal head coach did say he had never been consulted on a lack of institutional control regarding COVID mandates. 'I have never had a meeting about the egregious non-compliance of our players.'"
I think what he's saying there is that there may have been some slip-ups here and there where folks had to be reminded of the protocols, but he's suggesting that there wasn't such a widespread lack of compliance from the program that he had to hold a disciplinary meeting about it to reinforce the protocols. He's suggesting it wasn't a large scale non-compliance issue from his perspective. Which, maybe so, but then how did this outbreak happen?
Yes. I teach at a university where there is an indoor mask mandate. I have to remind students in the hallway I pass through to get to my classroom, that they need to wear their mask. Even if they aren't my students, I say this to them sometimes, because I find it frustrating. At other times, I don't say anything, because I can't and won't always be trying to get people to follow protocols, and I won't call the campus police on a student whose mask is below their nose.
That said, Wilcox is so much more thoughtful, intelligent, and well-spoken than Knowlton. His presser was *SO* much better than our AD's.
It really was. I was impressed by how he handled the entire press conference.
Agreed. Knowlton was unprepared and looked like a complete fool. Absolute embarrassment to the entire Cal community.
Knowlton is a huge part of the problem.
I'm really not sure what to make of this. Maybe shortsighted of me (and feel free to call me out on this as it's possibly a dumb thing to be concerned about), but I'm afraid of this tanking the team.
If Wilcox leaves because of this and if a bunch of players transfer out I'm not sure if the team's reputation will survive for a while. We'd be in for struggles
Or if Wilcox is canned for this? Been reluctant to criticize the guy, and I’ve been pulling for him to pull it together, but seems like a little loose oversight here, and a tighter ship might have withstood a few mistakes
IMO the loose oversight is more on the AD than the coaching staff.
Could well be right.
I will be mad if Knowlton stays and fires Wilcox for what happened.
Agreed. The fallout / repercussions whatever you want to call it are yet to come. The worse case scenario likely decimates Cal football for years. The best case is that somehow Wilcox pulls a Charmin Smith and keeps the current team intact with a salvage of some sort of the recruiting class. In-between those 2 scenarios is a plethora possibilities. TBD.
With the "plethora of possibilities in-between those 2" the likely scenario.
Based on Wilner's latest post stating the "(Not going to be all that) Big Game" is on track, and the USC game has been rescheduled, and the criticism from a COVID expert ripping Berkeley Public Health, it could be that the greatest "hit" from this might be the shorthanded loss (and poor showing) in Tucson.
I hope so. And I hope that the players and coaches are pissed off at the situation, and that the take it out mercilessly on furd
I think the Bears are going to play the Big Game with a chip on their shoulder and -- assuming a full squad or near to -- crush the Furd.
Which unfortunately was incredibly costly in terms of sneaking into a bowl game....sigh.
Yeah, I'm thinking that's not the most unbiased publication.
Let's start with the fact that they used a photo of Cal football from (I think) 2008, nowhere close to the current team. The other big claim here is directly contradicted by their own point. Dr. Gandhi says that vaccinated people who are showing no symptoms are very unlikely to transmit the virus. The UC Davis study cited in this article specifically states the following:
https://www.ucdavis.edu/health/covid-19/news/viral-loads-similar-between-vaccinated-and-unvaccinated-people
"Our study does not provide information on infectiousness,” Michelmore said. “Transmission will be influenced by several factors, not just vaccination status and viral load.”
So it's not a contradiction of what Gandhi said. Viral load is not the only factor for infectiousness. If I had to guess at why the studies Gandhi cited showed far reduced transmission among vaccinated people, it's that probably the vaccines allow the body to "deactivate" the virus faster. So there might still be virus in a person's body, but it's not able to attack or spread any longer. That's just me as a layperson trying to square the available evidence, not claiming any specific expertise.
I was just going by the URL.
I think that was a photo used on Cal football Wikipedia page. Nate Longshore, Alex Mack, Will Ta'ufo'ou, Noris Male, and Chet Teofilo I believe.