Apparently America has totally given up on fighting Covid-19. 107,000 attended UM's opening game.

[tclambert]

The Delta variant has caused a surge, as bad or worse than at any point in the pandemic, and we're packing people into college football stadiums. Does the phrase "super-spreader event" mean nothing to anyone? At the Michigan game maybe 10,000 wore masks. The other 97,000 were bare-faced and looked unconcerned.

I wouldn't find it surprising if Governor DeSantis of Florida outlawed wearing masks at Saturday's college football games in his state.

I guess college football is more important than people's lives.

[MustLoveBeagles]

1. It appears so

I'd had high hopes for 2021 with the development of vaccines but things are even worse now. So much for going to Germany to see the grandkids.

[Texaswitchy]

2. Seems like it.

The adults are few now.

We will never get to a new normal.

The hospitals will crash and burn.

To many fools playing make believe.

[luv2fly]

3. Not that it's any consolation

But it's not just here in America, so many countries are struggling in the same way we are. Anti-vaxxers, anti mask folks, and fascists taking advantage of the pandemic. Such behavior doesn't pay attention to borders.

[SweetieD]

4. more than 80k will be in attendance in Gainsville tonight for a University of Florida game.

At this point, it just seems like people are giving up and trying to infect as many people as possible and just letting the cards fall where they may.

[LisaL]

9. There is already no room in the hospitals.

Those infected will be demanding medical care and where will it come from?

[former9thward]

5. Its played outdoors.

Covid does not spread easily in an outdoor environment. That is science. There have been hundreds of professional baseball games played this year with a cumulative total of millions of people attending.

[VarryOn]

7. Outdoor events are safe enough...

I was at the NASCAR event last weekend in Daytona Beach. There were 80K+ in attendance. My family is vaxxed, and we felt safe. If we weren't vaxxed, we wouldn't have gone.

Next weekend, we're going to attend an SEC football game. I have no qualms about going. I'm vaxxed.

It's good to see people carrying on. We can't lock down forever. But, I can understand people who do. We all have different risk tolerances.

[jcgoldie]

11. correct

385000 attended lollapalooza in chicago last month all vaxxed or tested within 48 hours of shows only a couple hundred contracted the virus. It does not spread much outside. We know this which we did not a year ago.

[Skittles]

12. only a couple hundred

how many did they spread it to?

[LisaL]

14. We can calculate.

With delta, each person spreads it to five-nine people on average.
So two hundreds will become a 1,000, and so on.

[jcgoldie]

16. no

If you want to be the party that respects science then you have to respect it both ways. I looked it up the number was 203... 203/385000 = .00052727. 5 hundredths of a percent chance.

[Skittles]

17. you said a couple hundred got the virus

forget how big the crowd is.......to how many people have those 200 passed the virus on to?

[jcgoldie]

18. The point

Attending an outdoor event with 10s of thousands of vaccinated people you are no more likely to contract the virus than going masked to the hardware or grocery store.

[Skittles]

22. yeah, two hundred people spreading a virus is nothing

done here

[uponit7771]

25. Relative to crowd size and how herd immunity works? yes ... that's nothing

[helpisontheway]

6. There are probably almost 25,000 at a football game for my son's school. Nt

[Baked Potato]

8. Hard to blame Dems for it then at election time.

Can lead a horse to water, and all that...

[Shanti Shanti Shanti]

10. Go Herd Go! Go Herd Go! Goooooooo Herd! We want 70%, We want 70%! GO HERD!

[tclambert]

26. They say the Delta variant has a herd immunity threshold of 90%.

They compare it to chicken pox, which has a herd immunity threshold of 90 to 92 percent.

Wikipedia says you might have to get to 80 to 88 percent for herd immunity.

And here are two sobering thoughts: The vaccines are only about 95% effective, and children under 12 are still not eligible to take the vaccines.

[greenjar_01]

13. You all know that there has been major and minor league baseball at full capacity all summer

Right?

Do you think anyone checks a vaccine card or requires a mask at a major league ballpark?

This has been going on all summer, from Boston to LA.

I suppose the spectacle of Virginia Tech or Michigan leaves an impression, but there have been outdoor sports events with little "mitigation" for months now. They're playing soccer to full stadiums all over Europe and the UK. Did you see the Kop for the Liverpool-Chelsea match?

[LisaL]

15. And infections are going through the roof.

We are going to run out of hospital beds.

[greenjar_01]

19. We have low hospitalization rates and positivity rates in many cities where you'd expect

explosions if these events were causing outbreaks, and major outbreaks in places that seem unconnected to baseball games. You're an evangelist on this point, but I don't really think you're right. Why are hospitalizations and infection rates low in Chicago and Boston where baseball has played to packed stadiums for months? Why have the rates there remained lower than the Spring even with delta obviously surging?

[LisaL]

20. You don't seem to understand how bad our situation is.

"The U.S. is heading into Labor Day weekend with just over four times as many Covid-19 cases and more than twice as many hospitalizations as at this time last year — despite having vaccinated 62% of the American population with at least one dose."

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/03/us-heads-into-labor-day-with-covid-vaccines-but-substantially-worse-outbreak-than-last-year.html

[greenjar_01]

21. As I said

You're an evangelist, but I don't think you're right.

Have a good one.

[marmar]

24. Infections are high, but the rate of INCREASE has slowed quite a bit.

Just some context. Not taking a position one way or another.

[Vinca]

23. It's going to be another bad winter. Invest in ventilators.