Will There Be a 2022 Season?

B.B. Hemingway said:
Why wouldn't there be one?
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Well current college bowl games, NCAA basketball, the NFL, NHL and NBA are all walking a tightrope of postponements, forfeits and cancelations at a time when we were sure COVID was in the rearview mirror. Some rapidly unfolding stats suggest the latest surge could be the worst yet -- certainly in terms of infections. It's a global thing, not an American or political party or mainstream media thing, so there's no need to go there. 

I'm thinking Omicron is going to be a quick burn, and next August is a long way off. So yeah, I'd bet on a college football season with fans in the stands next fall. 

Still, there's just enough in the past few weeks to give you pause.

Last year's thread was a hot mess so I thought I'd revisit it with a clickbait headline. 

Bit of a d!(k move on my part. 

 
B.B. Hemingway said:
This is why I asked. Everything I've read that isn't from the fear mongering type seems to suggest it'll be swift.
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Someone can move this to P&R if they like, but anyone who predicted what has factually happened with the coronavirus was accused of fear-mongering at the time. 

Also, anyone who knew their stuff was smart enough to admit there's always unpredictability to mutating global pandemics. The early Vegas line on omicron is looking promising, but that's not the end of the scenarios. I think it would be helpful if we all stopped pretending there's an agenda behind Covid. Like all other living things on Earth, it is only interested in its survival. 

The reason I don't mind having a COVID thread in the football folder is because it directly impacts sports, and I desperately need sports to help get me through this s#!t.  I'm bummed enough that the NBA Christmas Day slate will be missing some of the best players in the game. 

 
B.B. Hemingway said:
This is why I asked. Everything I've read that isn't from the fear mongering type seems to suggest it'll be swift.
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I saw an article from CNN this morning, from an 'expert' (there are apparently so many of them these days), who said that this is the 'perfect storm' scenario, and we have a 'blizzard' of cases.  

Aside from the fact that CNN may have been interviewing a meteorologist by mistake, I do think it's interesting that we keep coming back to the same tired doomsday takes.  So, a 'perfect storm' is apparently a combination of the following factors:

  -Population with robust immunity built up over the past 20 months

  -Vaccines and boosters being administered daily

  -Variety of treatments available, including 2 antivirals that were given EUA in the past week

  -What appears to be a significantly gentler strain of the virus wiping out the more dangerous current strain (Delta)

Add that to the extremely useful articles with headlines like:

Expert says 'Omicron doesn't care about state lines' or 'COVID won't take a Christmas Vacation', Says Expert.

I'm really glad I have a news feed to remind of all of this valuable information.

 
Jason Sitoke said:
I saw an article from CNN this morning, from an 'expert' (there are apparently so many of them these days), who said that this is the 'perfect storm' scenario, and we have a 'blizzard' of cases.  

Aside from the fact that CNN may have been interviewing a meteorologist by mistake, I do think it's interesting that we keep coming back to the same tired doomsday takes.  So, a 'perfect storm' is apparently a combination of the following factors:

  -Population with robust immunity built up over the past 20 months

  -Vaccines and boosters being administered daily

  -Variety of treatments available, including 2 antivirals that were given EUA in the past week

  -What appears to be a significantly gentler strain of the virus wiping out the more dangerous current strain (Delta)

Add that to the extremely useful articles with headlines like:

Expert says 'Omicron doesn't care about state lines' or 'COVID won't take a Christmas Vacation', Says Expert.

I'm really glad I have a news feed to remind of all of this valuable information.
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Speculation is always speculation, but the stone-cold facts suggest every stage of the pandemic has been more serious than the non-mainstream media wants us to believe.

The U.S. logged 200,000 new cases and 2,000 deaths Monday, part of a big uptick that's been going on for weeks.  The vast majority of hospitalizations and deaths are among the un-vaccinated. Many of the positive trends are indeed positive and will help get us out of it, but they obviously haven't stopped some of the worst numbers in the last two years, and it's not a huge mystery that a strain exponentially more infectious would take advantage of a population that has returned to its pre-COVID lifestyle. 

It's crazy to think that this shouldn't be news, but that's apparently where we're at. 

 
Guy Chamberlin said:
Speculation is always speculation, but the stone-cold facts suggest every stage of the pandemic has been more serious than the non-mainstream media wants us to believe.

The U.S. logged 200,000 new cases and 2,000 deaths Monday, part of a big uptick that's been going on for weeks.  The vast majority of hospitalizations and deaths are among the un-vaccinated. Many of the positive trends are indeed positive and will help get us out of it, but they obviously haven't stopped some of the worst numbers in the last two years, and it's not a huge mystery that a strain exponentially more infectious would take advantage of a population that has returned to its pre-COVID lifestyle. 

It's crazy to think that this shouldn't be news, but that's apparently where we're at. 
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This isn’t measured speculation that I’m talking about. This is headline baiting and it’s happened throughout.
 

I know you and I have a difference of opinion here…although I don’t think we’re in opposite camps on how consequential the pandemic has been. My main gripe about the media throughout this has been well documented in the 700 pages of the main thread in the P&R section and I won’t rehash it here. 
 

Summarily, you’re free to wonder whether there will be a 2022 season if you wish. It’s possible that things could turn out that way, but if your suggestion is solely hitched to ‘well, things could go bad again in some unforeseen way’, I don’t really know what discussion we can really have about it. 

 
Guy Chamberlin said:
Speculation is always speculation, but the stone-cold facts suggest every stage of the pandemic has been more serious than the non-mainstream media wants us to believe.

The U.S. logged 200,000 new cases and 2,000 deaths Monday, part of a big uptick that's been going on for weeks.  The vast majority of hospitalizations and deaths are among the un-vaccinated. Many of the positive trends are indeed positive and will help get us out of it, but they obviously haven't stopped some of the worst numbers in the last two years, and it's not a huge mystery that a strain exponentially more infectious would take advantage of a population that has returned to its pre-COVID lifestyle. 

It's crazy to think that this shouldn't be news, but that's apparently where we're at. 
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It's also probably been less serious, or at least less dangerous to the vast majority of people, then the mainstream American media (American being the important part there) would have us believe. Our media coverage slants towards the negative and the fear mongering, whether you're watching Fox, CNN, or whatever. It's a huge reason I try and only consume television news from the BBC. I won't downplay the pandemic too much, but I see zero reason, with the vaccine and new treatments,  why almost all of us can't return to that pre-Covid lifestyle. Especially since there seems to be some thought out there that this isn't going away anytime soon. Life goes on, and it must. I'm thankful I live in a part of the country that thinks so to.

 
B.B. Hemingway said:
It's also probably been less serious, or at least less dangerous to the vast majority of people, then the mainstream American media (American being the important part there) would have us believe. Our media coverage slants towards the negative and the fear mongering, whether you're watching Fox, CNN, or whatever. It's a huge reason I try and only consume television news from the BBC. I won't downplay the pandemic too much, but I see zero reason, with the vaccine and new treatments,  why almost all of us can't return to that pre-Covid lifestyle. Especially since there seems to be some thought out there that this isn't going away anytime soon. Life goes on, and it must. I'm thankful I live in a part of the country that thinks so to.
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I guess we agree on a lot of the important stuff. I live in a part of the country where vaccinations have been extremely high and mask-wearing met with little protest. We've had extremely low numbers of hospitalizations and deaths, and have managed to go on with our lives in a neighborly way with no excessive fear-mongering. The narrative of fearful American sheep is a bit slanted too, eh? 

I like the BBC, too, and while they avoid the click bait headlines they certainly haven't underplayed the real or possible threat of a global pandemic. The U.K. has gotten hammered. CNN and Fox need hired pundits to jabber 24/7, and that's always going to be a speculation-fest. Again, anyone who would have predicted 2,000 deaths a day and more than 800,000 U.S. dead by Christmas 2021 would have been accused of fear-mongering. The reflex to blame things on the media can get lazy and inaccurate.

As mentioned, I'd bet on that 2022 season coming off fine,  but I'm watching my sports getting canceled and compromised long after I thought this would be over. It's not like this isn't a thing, or that sports isn't the place to talk about it. 

 
B.B. Hemingway said:
I won't downplay the pandemic too much, but I see zero reason, with the vaccine and new treatments,  why almost all of us can't return to that pre-Covid lifestyle. Especially since there seems to be some thought out there that this isn't going away anytime soon. Life goes on, and it must. I'm thankful I live in a part of the country that thinks so to.
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Except hospitals are running low on beds, monoclonal antibody treatments that worked on previous variants aren't as effective against omicron, and some of the most effective treatments for omicron are running low on supply.

I'm glad you live somewhere less affected by the pandemic, and I get that we're all tired of having to deal with it, but there are still reasons why we can't simply go back to life as before just yet. I think as covid, flu, and respiratory ailments combine we're in for a few more tough months. But I think/hope by the end of spring we will be past the worst of it and returning to normal.

 
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