Quote Originally Posted by Gutter Cobreh View Post
Appreciate your viewpoint.

Since this is a sports board, I will start there. I think that we are so consumed with sports that we let it overshadow the fact that it is not essential. I'm all for letting professional sports continue as they see fit, but I think you have to tread carefully when talking about high school or college sports. I think if our universities are so dependent on athletic revenue to balance their operating budgets - then something has gone amiss and this situation has brought to light the imbalance of what an institution of higher learning should be about. It isn't about "fear mongering" or "not seeing the bigger picture" - it is more about whether an activity is essential enough to waive the risks. If the general population feels like that sports at lower levels are essential enough to deal with kids potentially getting sick, then go for it. If a majority think the risks don't warrant cancelling, then have at it. You're going to have detractors and views for both sides. I don't know which side is correct, but I do know sports are entertainment.
Not to pick on you or be argumentative, but I would say this entire paragraph is an example of not seeing the bigger picture. We don't normally require that things be essential in order to allow them to go forward even with risk. Phrase like "whether an activity is essential enough to waive the risks" to me indicates somebody whose risk meter is all out of whack. The first question should be from the kids interest. I.e., how much additional risk is a child exposed to from (for example) playing football. ANd the answer is, not much. If they aren't playing football, they will very likely be socializing in similar sized groups and possibly going to school in similar sized groups. Even if they don't do that, many of them will be working in jobs like retail that expose them to a good number of people. And of course, most importantly, for most of them, it's not a particularly serious threat as far as we know. If you ask most kids, "Would you give up high school sports and other group activities for two years of your high school and otherwise drastically reduce the number of people you interact with socially for two years, in order to cut your risk of catching COVID in half (which I'm not sure we can do), which means your risk of death from COVID would drop from something like 0.01% of dying of COVID to 0.005%, and also cut your risk from some as of yet unknown side effects by half, I think most teenagers would say "are you 17ing kidding me?", and I don't think they would answer that way b/c they are bad at assessing risk (although granted most teenagers are).

The interests of the kids are certainly not the only question. But the way this thing is talked about you would think their happiness/satisfaction counts about as much as the happiness/satisfaction of people's pet fish. Just because things are not biologically or economically necessary doesn't mean they have zero value.

Again, not meaning to direct this necessarily at you. Some may apply, some may not, but in general, people seem to be being obtuse ass holes about this. If teenagers were going around saying things like, "so you lose your business that you spent the last five years of your life on. Just go get a job like the vast majority of other people. Five years of your life is a small price to pay", people would rightfully look at those teenagers as ass holes, or I guess more accurately, as lacking perspective because they are teenagers.

But I don't know what the excuse is for adults who act like just taking away in person school, extra curricular activities, social events, etc. from high schoolers for a couple of years is no big deal. It's a big deal. There's more to life than biological and work necessities and lots of things that aren't those things are important.


Quote Originally Posted by Gutter Cobreh View Post
To the same point, what are the largest events that typically happen in a rural area in the fall? Don't football games bring people together to sit in stands and root for their team? If you have an asymptomatic spreader that doesn't believe in the data and chooses to forgo a mask, wouldn't a football game where a majority of the community will attend provide an event for it to spread? Just a thought.

Full disclosure - my kid is prepping to play football this fall and is currently playing a league sport right now. My wife and I have discussed the situation and made the decision that we are going to continue our lives as best we can through this pandemic, while also being aware and doing our best to protect those around us by wearing masks. The virus isn't prevalent to a large degree in our current community, so no need to hunker down and be recluses.