Will There Be a 2020 Football Season?

[knapplc]

Editing this because this is turning out to be a way more complicated thing that Mr. Sebastianelli's statement seems to say. Read below for updates.

Original post:






Well, this certainly isn't going to move the needle in the "let them play" direction. 

PSU football doctor: 30-35 percent of COVID-19-positive Big Ten athletes had myocarditis



 
New data helps illustrate what Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren might have meant when he described “too much medical uncertainty and too many unknown health risks” as reasons for postponing the Big Ten’s 2020-21 fall sports season.

During a State College Area school board of directors meeting on Monday night, Wayne Sebastianelli — Penn State’s director of athletic medicine — made some alarming comments about the link between COVID-19 and myocarditis, particularly in Big Ten athletes. Sebastianelli said that cardiac MRI scans revealed that approximately a third of Big Ten athletes who tested positive for COVID-19 appeared to have myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle that can be fatal if left unchecked.

“When we looked at our COVID-positive athletes, whether they were symptomatic or not, 30 to roughly 35 percent of their heart muscles (are) inflamed,” Sebastianelli said. “And we really just don’t know what to do with it right now. It’s still very early in the infection. Some of that has led to the Pac-12 and the Big Ten’s decision to sort of put a hiatus on what’s happening.”

A day before the Big Ten announced its decision to postpone its fall sports season on Aug. 11, ESPN reported that the long-term effects of myocarditis had been discussed in meetings of presidents and chancellors, commissioners and athletic directors, and health advisory board members from the Big Ten and other conferences around the country.

“You could have a very high-level athlete who’s got a very superior VO2 max and cardiac output who gets infected with COVID and can drop his or her VO2 max and cardiac output just by 10 percent, and that could make them go from elite status to average status,” Sebastianelli said. “We don’t know that. We don’t know how long that’s going to last. What we have seen is when people have been studied with cardiac MRI scans — symptomatic and asymptomatic COVID infections — is a level of inflammation in cardiac muscle that just is alarming.”

EDITS FOLLOW WITH NEW INFORMATION


 

Source: No NFL players have had post-COVID heart ailment




No NFL player who has had COVID-19 has been diagnosed with myocarditis, a league source says.

The heart disease causes potentially life-threatening inflammation of heart tissue.

It was diagnosed in 10 or more football players at Big Ten universities, according to TheAthletic.com and other national U.S. sports-news outlets earlier this month.

Reports at that time cited a deep concern about myocarditis as a principal medical reason the Big Ten — one of the foremost U.S. college sports leagues — cancelled all fall sports.

Just on Friday, however, multiple reports said the Big Ten was seriously reconsidering that decision, at least for football. Leaders were said to be mulling a 2020-21 football season for winter instead of fall, beginning as early as late November.

This was posted later in the thread, but I'm editing this one because it's pertinent as a response to this post.

FootballScoop:

Myocarditis: Speaking at an area Board of School directors meeting on August 31st, Penn State director of athletic medicine Wayne Sebastianelli made a comment that of athletes who have tested positive for Covid “30 to roughly 35% of their heart muscles are inflamed.” FootballScoop reached out to contacts at 8 Big Ten schools (including Penn State). 7 have responded so far (not including Penn State), all 6 have said something along the lines of “We’re not experiencing that here and haven’t heard of anyone in the conference experiencing this. Last we heard was nearly 10 total athletes across all sports.” Update> ESPN has released information today saying, “Of the 26 schools (all Power 5) that answered the question about heart-related conditions for student-athletes, only one school — Oregon State — reported having an athlete who developed heart-related issues after contracting COVID-19, but the school stated it was not myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle.”

So there you go. Have fun with all that!   :LOLtartar

 

[nic]

How would a high school team even know since the virus spreads asymptomatically especially in young people? Are the high schools testing the players regularly?

Nope. My kid is only doing cross country at a 5A school, but no testing. Meets are underway with limited runners. The only HS kids I know that caught it got it from adult family members who actually got a little sick for a few days and got checked. If someone is not feeling sick, no check. Heck even if they feel a little sick they would blow that off. 

 

[nic]

Hope is rising....I might have to turn my streaming service back on.  :cowbell:

 

[Husker03]

Well, this certainly isn't going to move the needle in the "let them play" direction. 


 

Again, none of this matters when it comes to whether or not they should have football or not. Unless you can show that athletes have a significantly higher chance of contracting the virus through football related activities as compared to non-football related activities, the point is moot. The virus is going to do what the virus is going to do to the individual, the only reason to cancel football if playing it significantly increases a players chance of catching it. Even then, at 18 they can sign up for the services, so surely they can make this decision as well. Inform them, allow them to opt out w/o penalty, and pass out the pads if that is what they want.

 

[knapplc]

Again, none of this matters when it comes to whether or not they should have football or not. Unless you can show that athletes have a significantly higher chance of contracting the virus through football related activities as compared to non-football related activities, the point is moot. The virus is going to do what the virus is going to do to the individual, the only reason to cancel football if playing it significantly increases a players chance of catching it. Even then, at 18 they can sign up for the services, so surely they can make this decision as well. Inform them, allow them to opt out w/o penalty, and pass out the pads if that is what they want.

That doesn't moot the point because you can neither say playing does or does not increase chances of contracting the virus.

The only way to know for sure is to play, test and aggressively contract trace. And if you find out a player has contracted the virus through playing, then you have liability, and that's why these schools opted not to play.

EDIT - and it appears the Penn State director may have misspoken or just plain may be wrong.

Per FootballScoop:

Myocarditis: Speaking at an area Board of School directors meeting on August 31st, Penn State director of athletic medicine Wayne Sebastianelli made a comment that of athletes who have tested positive for Covid “30 to roughly 35% of their heart muscles are inflamed.” FootballScoop reached out to contacts at 8 Big Ten schools (including Penn State). 7 have responded so far (not including Penn State), all 6 have said something along the lines of “We’re not experiencing that here and haven’t heard of anyone in the conference experiencing this. Last we heard was nearly 10 total athletes across all sports.” Update> ESPN has released information today saying, “Of the 26 schools (all Power 5) that answered the question about heart-related conditions for student-athletes, only one school — Oregon State — reported having an athlete who developed heart-related issues after contracting COVID-19, but the school stated it was not myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle.”

 

[suh_fan93]

[No message]

 

[internetman]

The whole "big 10 is blah blah blah" could have been avoided if they would have just shared this information with the public to begin with. I hope that they shared this information with the other conferences...

 

[suh_fan93]

The whole "big 10 is blah blah blah" could have been avoided if they would have just shared this information with the public to begin with. I hope that they shared this information with the other conferences...

I don't feel that way at all but obv they were considering this kind of thing when they (the Presidents and chancellors) decided to postpone.

 

[RedDenver]

The whole "big 10 is blah blah blah" could have been avoided if they would have just shared this information with the public to begin with. I hope that they shared this information with the other conferences...

Yes, it makes absolutely no sense to hide the medical data and opinions that they used to make a decision. That information could help not only other conferences but high schools and the general public.

 

[Danny Bateman]

Nearly half of Power 5 won't disclose COVID-19 test data




We made the list!

As debate swirls about the return of college fall sports amid an increasing number of positive COVID-19 tests on campuses, football coaches and athletic directors have been loudly championing their schools' health and testing protocols.

The schools are much less forthcoming, though, about the actual number of positive tests in their programs and other related data.

In response to a series of questions from ESPN about their COVID-19 testing protocols, almost half of the 65 schools in the Power 5 conferences declined to share data about how many positive tests their programs have had to date. Nearly a third of the schools overall declined to provide information about protocols in addition to withholding the number of athletes who have tested positive.

Twenty-one schools that declined to provide data are in the conferences that plan to play college sports this fall: the ACC, Big 12 and SEC.

Many of the schools that declined to give data to ESPN cited federal student privacy laws, university protocols and other confidentiality considerations, although legal experts say those laws shouldn't be applied to such a request because the data wouldn't identify specific students.

Among the questions ESPN asked school administrators were how many tests have been administered since the school started testing athletes; how many athletes have tested positive; what protocols the department has in place once an athlete tests positive; how many athletes have heart-related issues due to the coronavirus; and whether the school shares data with government health officials.

Can't have an outbreak if you bury the data!

 

[Notre Dame Joe]

IS ESPN trying to tabulate data from fall sports that have been cancelled?

 

[WyoHusker56]

That doesn't moot the point because you can neither say playing does or does not increase chances of contracting the virus.

The only way to know for sure is to play, test and aggressively contract trace. And if you find out a player has contracted the virus through playing, then you have liability, and that's why these schools opted not to play.

EDIT - and it appears the Penn State director may have misspoken or just plain may be wrong.

Per FootballScoop:

Curious if that article gets changed based on the FootballScoop report there.

However, if you are able to conduct enough testing that you can ensure infected athletes are not competing in games or practice (theoretically what the rapid tests allow and is what the B1G is trying to do) then you can be certain that football isn't the cause and they are contracting it elsewhere as they otherwise would. At least that'd be the argument.

 

[Danny Bateman]

That doesn't moot the point because you can neither say playing does or does not increase chances of contracting the virus.

The only way to know for sure is to play, test and aggressively contract trace. And if you find out a player has contracted the virus through playing, then you have liability, and that's why these schools opted not to play.

EDIT - and it appears the Penn State director may have misspoken or just plain may be wrong.

Per FootballScoop:

IMO, if there are legitimate concerns about potentially long-term cardiovascular problems - and I would assume there are, but the data is kind of murky right now and we're not privy to exactly what they're using at this point - the season happening prior to an effective vaccine would probably require allowing players to opt-out and requiring those who want to play to sign some type of release of liability waiver along the lines of "we'll get you all the help you need for acute issues, but if you develop long-term complications, we're off the hook and you're on your own."

This is similar to what people who take part in clinical trials of experimental treatments have to sign.

IF that's the case there's potential for lots of bad pub for schools and programs, especially if someone does wind up contracting the virus and having complications.

 

[knapplc]

Curious if that article gets changed based on the FootballScoop report there.

However, if you are able to conduct enough testing that you can ensure infected athletes are not competing in games or practice (theoretically what the rapid tests allow and is what the B1G is trying to do) then you can be certain that football isn't the cause and they are contracting it elsewhere as they otherwise would. At least that'd be the argument.

I also would like clarification from Mr. Sebastianelli in light of not only the FootballScoop stuff, but now the report from the NFL that no Covid-positive players have developed myocarditis. Something's gotta give between those statements. 

 

[WyoHusker56]

I also would like clarification from Mr. Sebastianelli in light of not only the FootballScoop stuff, but now the report from the NFL that no Covid-positive players have developed myocarditis. Something's gotta give between those statements. 

Ya 30-35% of people vs. other reports of small to nonexistent cases is a pretty drastic difference.