Val Ackerman press conference

[BlueMAB]

We had a thread about whether or not we'll have a season next year get shut down because the discussion involved "COVID crap".

I wonder how you discuss whether or not we have a season next year WITHOUT discussing COVID. But I digress.

I'm sure this will get shut down too, because "conversation crap" or something like that.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

There is no point in arguing about the COVID part with basketball. The schools may decide that it is worth the risk to play a full season next year, or they may decide that there is no basketball until there is a vaccine even if it takes 5 years, or anything in between.

 

[UConnTrumbull]

It’s May. There is half of a year until college basketball is supposed to tip off. Germany is starting their professional soccer league back up next week behind closed doors. Stating that basketball 100% will or will not happen is stupid. We don’t know.

 

[DaveHuskiesFan]

As someone who works for one of the biggest companies in CT I can tell you that my company will be working from home until September/October, at the earliest.

 

[BlueMAB]

There is no point in arguing about the COVID part with basketball. The schools may decide that it is worth the risk to play a full season next year, or they may decide that there is no basketball until there is a vaccine even if it takes 5 years, or anything in between.

There's no point in arguing about 99.99% of what we argue about.

But we do it anyway.

 

[David 76]

Places will continue to reopen because we cannot wait until cases get to 0 to return to normalcy. Lots of high end reports and studies are coming out now saying the lockdowns and economic effects will cause more harm than the virus itself. Nobody can say for sure, but I think we will be playing a full schedule this season.

You seem to just want to fight, but I'll give this a try.
No one ever said the number of people with the virus has to go to zero. No one.
What the guidelines call for is a reduction in hospitalization fo r, I believe 14 days.
There are concerns about about our economy, people 's ability to survive financially etc. They are legitimate. We are talking about how we best get there.
But the big push to reopen quickly is held by a minority of Americans. Many businesses do not agree to rushing . Most people are not rushing out to shop.
I hope you can take this in a constructive way.
Otherwise, if your feelings are this strong, put your money where your mouth is and volunteer to work at a meat packing plant.

 

[superjohn]

Tell that to Dan Spano, the 30 year old personal trainer who died in Norwalk. This is a highly contagious and variable disease, there is no logic right no for safely riding though the disease - ask Boris Johnson.

That's an absurd statement, there is absolutely logic for not being locked down indefinitely. I think the logic of opening things back up smartly far outweighs indefinite lockdown. A study found an additional 75,000 people will die from deaths of despair from the lockdowns. Another study found 70,000 cancers with go undetected. Vaccinations for kids have plummeted.

It's incredibly sad for that 30 year old man and his family but he's a huge outlier.

 

[JimHurley]

You seem to just want to fight, but I'll give this a try.
No one ever said the number of people with the virus has to go to zero. No one.
What the guidelines call for is a reduction in hospitalization fo r, I believe 14 days.
There are concerns about about our economy, people 's ability to survive financially etc. They are legitimate. We are talking about how we best get there.
But the big push to reopen quickly is held by a minority of Americans. Many businesses do not agree to rushing . Most people are not rushing out to shop.
I hope you can take this in a constructive way.
Otherwise, if your feelings are this strong, put your money where your mouth is and volunteer to work at a meat packing plant.

Not looking to fight at all. Just trying to get my point across that I think a lot of people ignore which is that staying locked down will also cause lots of damage. The economy also affects public health in a big way. Also I'm not for a rushed reopening at all. I'm all for those who don't feel safe working at a meat packing plant staying home if they feel their health at work is at risk. However if businesses can comply with social distancing, their employees want to go back to work, and they require compliance from customers, let them work.

 

[BlueMAB]

Neither option is tenable.

The argument is (as it always is) over where we all can meet in the middle.

 

[David 76]

While we're talking about social-safety nets can we not pretend like we don't have one?

We have one. It's not great, but it generally works.

Where it fails, is when it is overloaded with requests.

Like just about anything designed for a capacity of X, rather than a capacity of X-cubed.

Like an unemployment office besieged by unemployed Americans? Or a hospital over run with patients?

My job is part running the safety net. It sucks.

 

[JB75]

I mean if you really break it down we don’t really need November and December basketball the holiday tournaments would be nice and all but who cares about UConn versus Wagner. We might have to start early January and just begin right off the bat with the big east schedule I don’t care what they do I just want to have a season and if it means sacrificing November and December so be it. If things get pushed up worst-case you can have March madness in April or something

 

[NJHusky]

It's telling that there is a third option - a competent government response - that doesn't even rank on the decision tree.

So, what is your intelligent response? and please don't say testing...that's a given.

 

[selles]

But the big push to reopen quickly is held by a minority of Americans.

This may be true in the northeast. I'm not so sure it's the case elsewhere.

 

[BlueMAB]

Like an unemployment office besieged by unemployed Americans? Or a hospital over run with patients?

My job is part running the safety net. It sucks.

Even if it didn't suck. I can guarantee it would fail quickly (if only temporarily) if 10X as many applications/calls are coming in then what is normal for an extended period of time

 

[NJHusky]

Those are failures of government support, though. Every single thing you mention is a consequence of not taking care of its citizens. Your life should not be wedded to work.

so the gov't is supposed to supply food, rent, living expenses for 200 million people? how are they supposed to pay for this? Sorry, but if you don't work...how do you support yourself?

 

[HooperScooper]

 

[NJHusky]

Tell that to Dan Spano, the 30 year old personal trainer who died in Norwalk. This is a highly contagious and variable disease. They are finding considerable complication post disease with Kidney, brain, digestive etc. systems.

it's a terrible someone that young died...but young people die. They die of a car accident, or of a drug overdose, or of the regular flu, or suicide or other diseases.

 

[StllH8L8ner]

Not looking to fight at all. Just trying to get my point across that I think a lot of people ignore which is that staying locked down will also cause lots of damage. The economy also affects public health in a big way. Also I'm not for a rushed reopening at all. I'm all for those who don't feel safe working at a meat packing plant staying home if they feel their health at work is at risk. However if businesses can comply with social distancing, their employees want to go back to work, and they require compliance from customers, let them work.

The problem is businesses will do a good job of setting up social distancing, sanitizing, etc and there are a good number of patrons who will ignore it bc they are entitled pr!cks. I see it almost every time I go to the grocery store, Home Depot, etc and I don't leave my house that often. Some people simply cannot follow simple rules and will take the "no one tells me what to do" attitude which extends the problems we're seeing. I think opening businesses in a pragmatic way is what we need but the people who frequent these businesses also need to be step up and find a way not to be d-bags about their newly found freedom.

 

[BlueMAB]

The problem is businesses will do a good job of setting up social distancing, sanitizing, etc and there are a good number of patrons who will ignore it bc they are entitled pr!cks. I see it almost every time I go to the grocery store, Home Depot, etc and I don't leave my house that often. Some people simply cannot follow simple rules and take the "no one tells me what to do" attitude which extends the problems we're seeing. I think opening businesses in a pragmatic way is what we need but the people who frequent these businesses also need to be step up and find a way not to be d-bags about their newly found freedom.

And then there's this story.

 

[JimHurley]

The problem is businesses will do a good job of setting up social distancing, sanitizing, etc and there are a good number of patrons who will ignore it bc they are entitled pr!cks. I see it almost every time I go to the grocery store, Home Depot, etc and I don't leave my house that often. Some people simply cannot follow simple rules and take the "no one tells me what to do" attitude which extends the problems we're seeing. I think opening businesses in a pragmatic way is what we need but the people who frequent these businesses also need to be step up and find a way not to be d-bags about their newly found freedom.

I agree with you. People must comply or it won’t work. The take out restaurants I visit require a mask to go inside and don’t let any more than 5 customers in at a time. Businesses will have to enforce such rules.

 

[BlueMAB]

so the gov't is supposed to supply food, rent, living expenses for 200 million people? how are they supposed to pay for this? Sorry, but if you don't work...how do you support yourself?

*checks google.

308 million people

 

[David 76]

Not looking to fight at all. Just trying to get my point across that I think a lot of people ignore which is that staying locked down will also cause lots of damage. The economy also affects public health in a big way. Also I'm not for a rushed reopening at all. I'm all for those who don't feel safe working at a meat packing plant staying home if they feel their health at work is at risk. However if businesses can comply with social distancing, their employees want to go back to work, and they require compliance from customers, let them work.

Thanks.
I have been in my office except for the time they spent decontaminating it because we had someone with covid19. As you might guess from my handle, I'm old. 65. So is my wife and she has medical conditions that put her further at risk. I did not like the idea that I might kill her by going to work.
It's complicated and we all need to listen. Americans are not very good at that anymore.
I say follow the guidelines. I also realize we can't keep paying people to not work. I see a lot of white collar guys screaming for, basically, blue collar guys to return to risky jobs to save the white collar guys retirement accounts.But there are also non-salaried people with their lives falling apart, that need help.

 

[NJHusky]

You seem to just want to fight, but I'll give this a try.
No one ever said the number of people with the virus has to go to zero. No one.
What the guidelines call for is a reduction in hospitalization fo r, I believe 14 days.
There are concerns about about our economy, people 's ability to survive financially etc. They are legitimate. We are talking about how we best get there.
But the big push to reopen quickly is held by a minority of Americans. Many businesses do not agree to rushing . Most people are not rushing out to shop.
I hope you can take this in a constructive way.
Otherwise, if your feelings are this strong, put your money where your mouth is and volunteer to work at a meat packing plant.

Nothing is forcing anyone who doesn't want to participate in society to leave the house. Stay at home and don't leave...EVER. Don't let anyone into your house. Don't let anyone you live with leave the house either.

FL has opened restaurants...i'm choosing not to go out to eat...but I go to the store and I'm going to play golf now.

 

[Peacefrog]

That's an absurd statement, there is absolutely logic for not being locked down indefinitely. I think the logic of opening things back up smartly far outweighs indefinite lockdown. A study found an additional 75,000 people will die from deaths of despair from the lockdowns. Another study found 70,000 cancers with go undetected. Vaccinations for kids have plummeted.

It's incredibly sad for that 30 year old man and his family but he's a huge outlier.

I'm not in disagreement as I think we need to find a way to gradually and safely loosen restrictions. I'm not an expert in this area so I can't speak to the speed and magnitude of the loosening but from the numbers I've seen, including the projections of ancillary deaths from mental illness etc..., it seems we are probably going a bit too fast. Anyway, that's not even the point I wanted to make. Many are putting a lot of weight on the additional non-Covid deaths that are projected to result from isolation. No argument there, those deaths are just as tragic as those caused by the virus. However, there are going to be ancillary lives saved from isolation that will offset those to some as yet undetermined extent. I can't remember where I saw it but there are projections in the hundreds of thousands (globally) of reduced deaths from pulmonary and other disorders due to reduced air pollution resulting from lock-downs (not to mention the positive effect on the environment). More polluted places like China will disproportionately benefit but there will be a meaningful effect in the US as well.

Gotta go, victory #5 in five days is about to start.

 

[NJHusky]

*checks google.

308 million people

I assume not 100% of the population is of working age..uses common sense