Americans are in a race to get back to the games they love. Players need to play, coaches need to train and groups need to see enthusiasts in the stands as soon as possible. like the case in the past) ended up being more of a marathon than a race?
For months, I’ve been covering the race to expand a Covid-19 remedy. While public fitness officials say that an FDA-approved vaccine will be available in early 2021, this schedule is based more on medical optimism than on clinical evidence or beyond Most vaccines take five years, or usually much longer. The world record for the fastest and most effective vaccine was set in 1967, when Merck legalized mumps inoculation in just 4 years.
Scientists say that achieving “collective immunity,” the point at which the virus no longer spreads, will require at least 50% of the country (165 million Americans) to get vaccinated or contract the virus and recover. a vaccine will have to be very effective and that Americans will have to feel when taking it. None of the results are definitive and, in any case, it can take several years to achieve it. Even the maximum positive chronology assumes that other people will expand a lasting immunity opposed to the virus, which is also not a fact (here, here and here).
Don’t rain on anyone’s Rose Bowl Parade, however, the postponement of Big Ten and PAC-12 football may not be the latest sports victim of the coronavirus era. -19, here are five main long-term threats from the sport.
1. The monetary threat
Sport is the eleventh sixteenth industry in the United States, wedged between communications (10) and chemistry (12). With an estimated $750 billion, the games we play are a serious business. And this company is in serious trouble.
Major League Baseball is expected to lose billions in its short season, a season that, according to only 49% of MLB fans, will result in the coronation of a World Series champion. , expects to lose around $500 million this season alone in selling price tickets.
With countless uns sold tickets, products and advertising spaces, the fitness of the sports industry is in decline. The question is, how will it fall? While league commissioners and school presidents try to run their 2020-2021 seasons, no one has a plan to make long-term seasons successful if stadiums and arenas are forced to remain empty for the next two or three seasons.
2. The threat
Athletes who compete at higher levels tend to be young and in good physical shape, but are not invincible.
Eduardo Rodriguez, boston star pitcher Red Sox, diagnosed with Covid-19 on July 7 and scheduled to return 11 days later. An MRI showed myocarditis (inflammation of the heart), a potentially fatal result of coronavirus. Rodriguez said the symptoms,”. made me feel like I was a hundred years old. “Already, more than a dozen NCAA players have been diagnosed with the same problem.
There are still many scientists who are unaware of the persistent effects of Covid-19 on fitness; however, early studies indicate that the disorders could possibly come with long-term damage to the heart, lungs, kidneys and brain.
The most vulnerable, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), come with others with a body mass index (BMI) of more than 30. According to my account, there are more than three hundred players on the NFL charts who weigh three hundred pounds or more. Although the league did not release any facts about the infection rate, the players’ union announced 95 positive tests in July.
Although some athletes from all primary sports have dropped out, high-risk players (and middle-aged coaches) who have chosen to participate necessarily play Russian roulette with a partially loaded invisible pistol. If the NCAA and NFL move forward with games this fall, I expect serious medical consequences to come, adding at least one death.
3. Risk to culture and normalcy
Visit the discussion forums for almost each and every Big Ten or PAC-12 team, and look for articles that can have an effect on any psychologist. The toughest enthusiasts of any of the meetings are emotionally disappointed by the cancellation of the fall football season.
That’s understandable. Big Ten football has existed for more than 125 years and its groups participated in two world wars. These will be the first football weekends for millions of students and fans.
But the loss of culture will have serious repercussions beyond entrenched interests. The livelihoods of many workers and companies, who depend on the source of income from tourism and amateur trafficking, will also be compromised, a risk that will be accentuated if other FBS meetings fail to complete their activities. seasons without incident.
4. The risk of “amateurism” in sport
The dividing line between amateur and professional has blurred for decades. With demands for the resemblance of school athletes in video games and the risk of protests between students and athletes opposed to payments, the death of so-called amateurism in the game has been a long time. Coming.
At the school level, lucrative football and basketball sports continue to prevent and restart as presidents and sports administrators pause. For some schools, a canceled season will result in a loss of more than $100 million in revenue. Stanford University has discontinued 11 university systems for projected losses. It will be the last establishment to give up the sport without income.
A prolonged pandemic will particularly affect schools’ athletics departments and, through extension, more to the Olympic movement, says sports journalist Sally Jenkins. She predicts: “Some sports will not survive. Some will return to the roots of their club. “
Although college athletes are meant to be “students first”, this is rarely the case at higher levels of competition. In men’s football and basketball, in particular, school is a track for professionals. Canceling one full season (and the next) can lead elite athletes to boost their quest for college experience opportunities.
5. La risk to young people in sport (and children’s health)
Since the dawn of organized sports, leagues and extracurricular groups have occupied children’s free time from kindergarten through K12, but with dozens of minor league baseball groups and Pop Warner canceling seasons and tournaments, parents’ initial sadness (or relief) has given way to a long list of questions and concerns.
How to keep our young people active and exercising?How to reproduce or update the skills that young people acquire through play and physical education: commitment, concentration, teamwork, etc. ?And in the absence of a general fitness regime, what do we do with the threat of sedentary lifestyle?
Referring to studies showing that young people have a solid weight during the school year but gain weight in the summer, public fitness experts hope that school closures, combined with the cancellation of organized sports, will exacerbate the obesity epidemic in the country’s training years. In addition, getting rid of social interactions and game time while expanding social isolation and screen time can be a recipe for intellectual fitness issues, pediatric researchers say.
Consider, all of these disorders exist after only five months of partial blockage. Imagine the consequences if the pandemic continued for years. Parents, players, owners and enthusiasts are waiting for a timely solution to the existing crisis. The reality, however, will be very difficult, disappointing for many The coronavirus may not go away soon.
In the face of a viral pandemic, it might seem ridiculous to worry so much about the games we play, but losing the game will harm people’s fitness and well-being, worsening our existing disorders in the future.
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I am passionate about transforming the American health care formula and helping others perceive the consequences of their medical decisions.
I am passionate about transforming the American health care formula and helping others perceive the consequences of their medical decisions. Previously, I was executive director of The Permanente Medical Group, the country’s largest medical organization, and as president of Mid-Atlantic Permanente Medical In those roles, I am guilty of 10,000 doctors, 38,000 employees, and health care for five million Americans on the West and East Coasts. I wrote the Washington Post bestseller, “Abused: Why We Think We Get Good Health Care – and Why We are generally incorrect” and I’m a board-certified plastic surgeon and reconstructor, clinical professor of surgery at Stanford University and Stanford School of Business. The revisions I explain here are mine and do not necessarily constitute those of Kaiser Permanente. Follow me on Twitter @RobertPearlMD.