Why Sports Leagues invite Disaster By Ignoring Reality
“COVID-19 is taking its toll on teams and players around the league, whether vaccinated, as breakthrough cases are all over. And the Cowboys’ Zack Martin was placed on the Reserve-COVID list on Sunday, meaning he will miss the opener.”
The NCAA Football and CFL seasons have kicked off. The NHL, NBA and NFL campaigns are hot on their heels, ready to begin their 2021-22 seasons. The question is “Will they finish their seasons under the current Covid-19 protocols?”
Gauging from stadia full of maskless fans this past weekend around CFL and college football the general public has moved beyond viral doom playing wack-a-mole with the public. They seem to be saying they accept the “risk” that, for under-70s, 99.998 percent of them will not die of Covid.
That message seems lost on league officials. To them it’s still 2020 and panic of the unknown is rampant. The rules governing Covid-19 infections were first put in place in the summer of 2020 when “bubble” sports were in vogue and Zero Covid was the goal. They involved testing using the PCR system— that even NFL officials knew was grossly misapplied— tied to test-and-trace protocols. Those protocols— plus bubble isolation— hoped to identify the infected, the people in their circle and thereby achieve Zero Covid.
Like Clemson’s unbeaten season, Zero Covid is dead in the water. The question now is, What are acceptable losses? Still, leagues are ignoring the far-more accurate T-cell immunity testing (which, roughly, identifies antibodies in the system) in favour of the PCR tests. So we saw 13 players on the Edmonton Used-To-Be-Esquimaux put on a quarantine list for being in touch via one person infected— though not seriously sick— with the virus.
In short, even if players show minute traces of virus that can’t make them sick or, crucially, produce enough virus to infect others, an NFL or CFL team may miss the postseason. Players are being warned to not test positive in great numbers or else games will be forfeited. Under these rules it’s just a matter of time till the PCR tests cost a team or teams their season.
Of course this is FUBAR. No pro sports team member without co-morbidities has died or even reached an ICU. (Coaches and administrators have the had problems related to their age, morbidities endemic to the virus.) The fans have largely junked the protocols, with few if any difference in sickness rates to those masked up and huddled in their basement.
So why clinging to the old “vaccines will save us” mentality? Since the time the sports’ rules were unveiled we have learned the following:
As mentioned here many times, the PCR testing protocol— that leagues and media have embraced like a sailor to a sinking boat— is now understood to be highly problematic. If by highly problematic you mean utter nonsense. As Michael Senger writes in Tablet:
"Based on WHO’s guidance on COVID-19 testing, again citing Chinese journal articles, labs used, and continue to use, PCR cycle thresholds from 37 to 40, and sometimes as high as 45. At these cycle threshold levels, approximately 85% to 90% of cases are false positive…The WHO’s PCR guidance was… quite possibly the deadliest accounting fraud of all time. According to coding guidance, if the decedent had either tested positive or been in contact with anyone who had, within several weeks prior to death, then death should be classified as COVID-19 death.”
The only disqualifications should result from sick players with positive results from T-cell immunity tests. Sadly, these tests— that identify natural immunities rendering vaccines irrelevant— have been ignored for PCR tests by government and the sports bodies.
2) Masks remain the comfort blanket for health administrators. Despite testing that shows the common, thin-blue masks are porous and ill-fitted, working in just 14 percent of cases, administrators and sports leagues have once again rushing back to them as a break wall against the variants. But there is no evidence that masked states and provinces have had any noticeable advantage versus unmasked states such as Florid and Texas.
3) The magic-potion vaccines have proven anything but. Promised as the end of the pandemic they’re now falling apart . "Israel no longer considers people who have received 2 doses of Pfizer/BioNTech shots as "vaccinated." As of September 1, only those who received 3 doses are considered “vaccinated”. They have also stated their vaccine passports now expire 6 months after the 2nd Pfizer dose.
"That means you need booster shots to keep the vaccine passport valid. Meanwhile, Israeli Health officials indicated that 90% of COVID-19 hospitalizations are fully vaccinated.” Coming to a government near you, North America. And the demonization that follows mandatory vaxxing and passports will continue though three, four or more boosters.
4) Obesity— and resultant diabetes— is an equally lethal Covid risk. 60 percent of those in ICUs are morbidly obese. Yet we see porky politicians and overweight media scolds attack those not vaccinated as the greatest threat under the virus. The teams also need to emphasize preventatives and early treatments that are now , despite the protests of purchased media, showing positive results. See: Joe Rogan Ivermectin.
5) As we’ve often repeated: this is not a Covid issue anymore. It’s a healthcare capacity issue. Both Canada and U.S. denying that fact means we will be stuck in this rut till the next virus hits. Simply, if people want better healthcare they’re going to have to pay a lot more for it.
As for sports leagues they’d best find a safe position on what constitutes ground for a forfeit of games or a season. Because increasingly desperate healthcare zealots will define it for you if it helps covers their ass.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster (http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com). The best-selling author of Cap In Hand is also a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, his new book Personal Account with Tony Comper is now available on http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx