NCAA-W refs still in masks?

[BillyMac]

Just when some of us thought that there was some light head at the end of the COVID tunnel, re-surging Delta and Omicron, are dampening our expectations.

My daughter, an OBGYN M.D. (with an MS in International Pubic Health), was planning on having her two siblings, their families, myself, my ex-wife and her husband, four grandchildren in all, over for Christmas dinner on Saturday. Everyone has been fully vaccinated except her three under-age children.

She's been pretty calm and has not overreacted throughout the pandemic, even as her husband worked just north of New York City when it was USA ground zero at the start of this mess. She didn't even jump at getting her booster (as I did), waiting a few weeks for a convenient time. Sends her three kids to day care (a Petri dish of germs) even though both myself and my ex-wife are available to baby sit (as we have when any of the kids have been symptomatic and have been quarantined at home before passing COVID tests).

Fearing for her three unvaccinated children, and those of us considered "elderly", she has asked all of us to double mask when we go out in public all this coming week (games, gym, grocery shopping, church, and an in-and-out wake for me) and has "suggested" that we all take at-home COVID test before coming, masking up in her home on Christmas when we are not eating.

And my son (not a medical professional), who lives out of state (car ride), possibly overreacting, has decided not to bring his entire family, just himself. His family is fully protected (as much as they can be), not only are all fully vaccinated, but two in his household have also had the disease (natural immunity). He was one of the first (March 2020) in the country to quarantine after attending a sociology convention in New Orleans where several attendees contracted COVID, so he's been a little gun shy during the entire pandemic, as has been his Chinese wife, it seems that Asians are more concerned about communicable diseases (i.e., often wearing masks during flu season) than most Americans. They kept my grandson home from school, by choice, all of of last year (2020-21). Odd that his family has taken the most precautions and yet, two got COVID, when nobody else in my family (including my nurse daughter who has spent much of the last twenty months testing symptomatic COVID patients) got it.

Yikes!

Merry COVID Christmas, again.

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by BillyMac

And my son (not a medical professional), who lives out of state (car ride), possibly overreacting, has decided not to bring his entire family, just himself.

He cancelled. Told me that people on Long Island (he's just outside New York City) are going crazy lining up for vaccinations, boosters, and COVID tests. At-home testing kits are sold out everywhere on the Island.

Is he overreacting? I think so, but better safe than sorry. I will visit his family alone, double masked, before the New Year.

Merry COVID Christmas, again.

[Ignats75]

I haven't posted in a long time after I was forced to retire early due to a combination of medical and injury.

now, I keep the shot clock for both the men and women at a mid major D1 program in Ohio. I see a mixture on the women's side. I've had games where two officials are masked and the third one is not. Others have had all three masked. The table is all vaxxed and masked.

No booster for me. Turns out that both my wife and I carry a gene that causes our blood to clot. We have never had issues but two of our children do. My oldest son severely. The incidence of blood clotting from boosters is too high for my comfort.

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by Ignats75

I keep the shot clock for both the men and women at a mid major D1 program in Ohio ...

A few of our retired high school officials have banded together to form an organization that trains and "assigns" (more of a pool) college scorekeepers, timekeepers, and shot clock operators for New England and New York colleges at all levels, both men and women. Great way to stay involved with the game. Not my cup of tea, for now. I can still get my "basketball fix" by working middle school games with severe arthritis in my right foot.

[Rufus]

We attended the UConn vs. GT women's game in December and all 3 officials were masked during the game. Have watched a good bit of UConn and UGA women's and UConn men's and the women's game officials have always been masked whereas only individual/occasional masking for the men's officials.

At the end of the day it'll be interesting to see how this shakes out since the virus is here to stay and this seems to be moving from pandemic to endemic (i.e., something we live with and treat instead of try to prevent). I can see it moving to being an individual decision going forward but, at least for the higher profile (i.e., on TV) women's games, it seems like the officials are wearing masks.

[Ignats75]

Not physically, but mentally i have found that keeping the shot clock is harder than being on the floor officiating. I cringe at the thought of high schools going to a shot clock.

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by Ignats75

I cringe at the thought of high schools going to a shot clock.

While I tend to agree with Ignats75, many states have successfully moved to high school shot clocks, and a few have done it for many years.

I think that the key to success for high school shot clocks is to keep the rules as simple as possible based on purpose and intent, to force the team in control to shoot the ball and hit the ring in about half of a minute. No "stalling". All "resets" after a loss of control should be to about half of a minute. No held ball, kicking, frontcourt, backcourt, etc. exceptions. Maybe not even for out of bounds deflections by the defense (like ten seconds backcourt). Maybe not even for timeouts (like ten seconds backcourt). Keep it simple, the shot clock is either running, or reset to about half of a minute, never stopped. No stop button, just a reset button (like ten seconds backcourt). I fully realize that this will never fly, it's just that I'm wearing my rose colored glasses.

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by Ignats75

No booster for me. Turns out that both my wife and I carry a gene that causes our blood to clot. We have never had issues but two of our children do. My oldest son severely. The incidence of blood clotting from boosters is too high for my comfort.

Thanks for reminding us that some can't get the COVID vaccine for medical reasons. All the more reason for those of us who can get the vaccine to get it, to protect those who can't get it.

Hopefully, as more of us get the vaccine and/or more us get COVID (and natural immunity to some degree) and survive, we can reach something close to herd immunity, and knock down this infection to something similar to seasonal influenza, with annual vaccines based on the "variant of the day", some will get sick, some schools and businesses will suffer, some will die, but, hopefully, not to the extent of the last twenty months.

Until then we need to do the best we can to prevent preventable deaths. Get vaccinated if possible. Wear masks in indoor public settings. If possible, stay home from work/school if you feel ill. Test when necessary. Stay away from gigantic crowds (I skipped Christmas Eve mass). Hopefully scientists will continue to come up with better and better therapeutics/treatments.

My daughter-in-law is Chinese. People in east Asian countries (China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, etc.) have been masking up during cold and flu season for years (some also doing it for particulate air pollution from burning coal).

Originally Posted by Rufus

At the end of the day it'll be interesting to see how this shakes out since the virus is here to stay and this seems to be moving from pandemic to endemic (i.e., something we live with and treat instead of try to prevent).

Save for a miracle, COVID isn't going away anytime soon. This is not your great grandfather's smallpox, your grandfather's polio, or your father's measles.

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by BillyMac

Hopefully, as more of us get the vaccine and/or more us get COVID (and natural immunity to some degree) and survive, we can reach something close to herd immunity, and knock down this infection to something similar to annual influenza ...

Some say that this Omicron variant is doing us a favor by being very easily spread, but by not being as "fatal" as previous variants. Maybe it's the beginning of some type of end.

This is Darwinism at its best. If COVID is too "fatal", it will kill off all its human hosts (a virus is a parasite, it needs humans to survive), and then, with no more human hosts it will became as extinct as the dinosaurs (just don't tell that to my backyard chickens). So through mutations (variants) and natural selection the "fittest" variants will be the ones to infect a lot of human hosts, but not kill them, allowing those variants to survive and to live another day, reproduce, and have lots of "COVID babies", and the beat goes on.

Of course, lurking somewhere out there in the animal kingdom is another "novel" virus waiting to make the "big jump" from animals (pigs, ducks, bats, great apes, deer, etc.) to humans. Hopefully we'll be better prepared for it next time. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. Wait ... I'm being told ... 1918 ??? You sure ??? Never mind.

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by BillyMac

If possible, stay home from work/school if you feel ill ...

Back when I was teaching we had problems with "absenteeism" (playing hooky) but we also had problems with "presenteeism", students coming to school sick (colds, flu, pink eye, hand and mouth disease, fifth disease, lice, etc.), thus infecting others, including teachers. Mostly a problem caused by two parents working, with no baby sitter. And then there were students who prided themselves on their attendance, even when sick. For this reason I joined forces with the school nurse to do away with annual "perfect attendance" awards.

A classic case of hypocrisy, I was also an offender. Thirty years of teaching and I had only used one single sick day (influenza, despite getting the flu vaccine every year), even though I had accumulated the contracted maximum of 195 sick days. It was easier to come to work sick then it was to clean up the mess left in the wake of a substitute teacher. Almost every winter those "germ-ridden" kids would cough and sneeze in my "Petri dish" of a classroom and I would get a cold, often leading to bronchitis, or a sinus infection. I would get an antibiotic from a walk-in-clinic and be back in the classroom with no sick days.

After retiring from teaching, where I got at least one cold (usually two) every year for thirty years, I've only gotten a single cold over the past fifteen year since retiring (including working thirteen years as a chemist). I guess that being exposed to all sorts of rhinoviruses over thirty years (and noxious chemical fumes over thirteen years) gave me some type of natural immunity to colds. Of course, I'm no longer exposed to those "germ-ridden" kids.