Hoops

NBA players test positive to COVID-19 ahead of restart

Another Net:

[Charania] Nets guard Spencer Dinwiddie (@SDinwiddie_25) tells @TheAthleticNBA he has tested positive for coronavirus and has symptoms, creating doubt over his status for NBA restart.

With minimal interference from Dr KobeR. Amazing.

^ you sir are a first grade asshole and I hope your company goes belly up

I'm not supporting Anon'723 but right now its a hirer's market.

Candidates far outnumber roles, and yes, I have seen rates drop (not by 30% yet) but significant drops nonetheless.

If a worker happily accepts an offer to work for less than what was paid previously, does that make the boss a bad person?

#712 Herd immunity requires between 70% and 90% of the population to be immune to a virus. For most virus you require a vaccine to reach this number. The World and Australia are a long long way from building immunity

"I find it funny how the press isn't reporting Covid deaths anymore, just infections"

The press I'm seeing are still reporting deaths.

"The death rate has plummeted world wide yet infections are higher than ever. Could this mean we are building an immunity already?"

No, its that we're identifying more infected people than previously due to better testing regimes which was something that most experts said was the case at the time.

Also, in places where they've managed to flatten the curve somewhat, they're now able to dedicate more resources to helping those infected, and those places that have been hit later (ie, current hotspots in the south of the US) are better prepared than those affected earlier.

I find it funny how the press isn’t reporting Covid deaths anymore, just infections. The death rate has plummeted world wide yet infections are higher than ever. Could this mean we are building an immunity already?

US has closed borders to some large countries. Europe considering closing off the US. Almost every country has closed off or restricted travel in some way.

Maybe try the “Zoom’s just not the same” argument with the PM? Dare say their balance of top-tier economic and medical advice has recommended the current path forward and that the government would be keen to favour the business case if the repercussions weren’t serious.

Isaac, I think you're defining "the beginning" rather later than you could be. I too was skeptical at first - I've seen SARS and bird flu and swine flu and whatever else get hyped up and blow over in my lifetime - but I was also one of the first on board for cancelling the grand final. So by the time lockdowns were actually happening I was absolutely taking it seriously. And all that without having Darren Ng on speed dial.

So life is hold for 12-24 months?

My kids are at school*, youngest at childcare. I'm still working at my office or home. I swapped a planned international trip with intrastate trips. Going without packed stadia or making do with Zoom calls isn't quite "life is on hold" and "there'll be nothing left to come back to and society will start to fall apart." Distancing or masks in public or small-mid venues isn't a huge imposition for the public and should exist even without formal restrictions.

Even before there were restrictions on travel, we canned our proposed trip to the US because the risk in terms of medical costs was too extreme. That sort of response or market dampening is independent of restrictions. They could open up full sports or concert crowds, but you couldn't pay me to go to either for a while yet.

*At some point, I messaged a doctor (and former basketball player) about it all. He said he'd already pulled his kids out of school. That was confirmation for me, so we followed suit. Trying to work with a toddler at home is a huge pain, but not end of society even if many parents implied as much at the time...

You must not have too many 20-35yo mums on your Facebook, so much antivax chatter these days it is ridiculous. Those poor kids!

I don't use Facebook which is why I wondered if this was the primary vector, and also where they get it from. Can't think of anyone antivax in my circles. I know this stuff exists on Twitter but I don't see any of it (presumably social graph, or algorithms masking some of the replies to tweets if I go looking).

Does the flu stuff arrive from elsewhere (e.g., first exposure is seeing it in social media) or is it an innate thought (first exposure is something else) bolstered by external commentary?

The people that are distressed about lockdowns or "there'll be nothing left to come back to and society will start to fall apart", roughly where are you living and what industries are you working in? e.g., the vibe in Melbourne is likely to be quite different to Adelaide where things have relaxed significantly in recent months. Working in hospitality or meat packing, you might have a different reaction to white-collars working from home.

I was as big a skeptic as anyone at the beginning

But what would make you at all skeptical? You don't barricade suburbs indoors and roll out drones with loudspeakers unless it's a big deal. When news first started breaking here, and you could see that the numbers and response were serious, a colleague and I were talking about the inevitability of it hitting and what would happen. We stockpiled gear well before panic-buying was publicly evident.

And though I don't work in hospitality or even have a formal job and can easily work from anywhere, I lost a few tenants and we cut the rate for others, I'm exposed in terms of risk to hospitality and tourism (via Serio) and general marketing budgets (via Triplezero, Hoops ads, etc). Cancelled a significant trip overseas, plus some domestic travel. The workfront was a wasteland for a while there so I had reason to gripe about the impact of quarantine, but I feel that unchecked, this virus would do a lot more damage and it's likely necessary pain.

Maybe the sentiment is vastly different if your peers suffered serious job losses or you work in the arts and lacked a government support package or travel out of state/country a lot for work. As I said, I'm genuinely interested in understanding some of the comments and reactions people have had.

"Based on the above are we to keep everything shut until zero cases in Australia? "

No. No-one is saying or doing that in government. And the restrictions that have already been removed demonstrate that. Hell, we didn't even close 'everything' when the most severe restrictions were in place, back in March and April.

But international borders will remain restricted until there's a vaccine or widespread, accessible treatment that reduces the health impacts of COVID-19 infections on mortality and hospital resources (beds, staff, ventilators) to manageable levels.

Within Australia, how the Victorian outbreaks progress and whether they can be brought under control will have a lot to do with how far governments go with removal of restrictions. The biggest factor will be how well people can modify their behaviours to minimise the risk of transmission of the virus. Experience to date in Australia, USA, and other western countries is that too many people are ignoring the need to take some individual responsibility for their own health and that of others. That's not surprising - it's really hard to change some of our ingrained social practices.

So we'll have varying levels of restrictions for the foreseeable future (12-24 months). Levels and nature of restrictions will reflect locations and severities of outbreaks as and when they will occur. Just like is happening in Victoria at the moment.

"I'm tipping most people with the above attitude will think differently if and when it happens top them."

That's not really the most damaging scenario for these folks. It's the difficulty they'll have of finding an ambulance, hospital bed, ICU bed when they're filled with people with COVID-19. e.g., they have a serious injury or illness (not COVID-19) and need a hospital/ICU bed. People dying of septic shock because EDs are so overloaded that the sepsis wasn't detected soon enough, etc. Sepsis is one of the biggest killers every year, possibly the biggest. It's highly lethal and progresses rapidly (death often within 48 hours). Detecting it or not in ED or shortly after admission has a massive impact on outcome.

The other thing they forget is that the economy would be crippled by letting the pandemic loose. Picture most of your favourite restaurants and retail shops closing because too many staff are too sick or too frightened to work; some owners are too sick/frightened to open up; most customers are too frightened to go there and be served by apparently symptomatic staff. The imagine not being able to access welfare and support services for the same reasons; airlines closed down because not enough people are willing and able to pay for flights; similarly most of the travel and tourism industries; etc.

If some people feel frustrated by the current management of the pandemic, they would be devastated by the impacts on their wallets and lifestyles if we went down the "survival of the fittest" path.

PS - it's worth noting the COVID-19 impacts have been greater for men than women. The working hypothesis is based on a known biochemical mechanism involving male sex hormones (androgens). The androgens make it easier for the virus to penetrate cells within the body. Men usually have more androgens than women and children who've not yet reached puberty. So men get the virus more easily and suffer more severe impacts and a higher death rate. So the fittest in a COVID-19 ravaged world would be women and children below puberty. Interesting, given we're seeing quite a few, high profile, male athletes getting this thing now that the restrictions have been loosened.

A bit of herd immunity and survival of the fitess isn't a bad thing

This is the reason places like Victoria are screwed. There was a guy on the news this morning saying so what if I get it. I ain't stopping my life. He was asked what if get contracts it and gives it to his grandmother....he just shrugged his shoulders. Oh well. I'm tipping most people with the above attitude will think differently if and when it happens top them. How is that herd immunity working in the USA right now?

Treat Covid like a hamstring, sit for 14 dats and we kep playing.

Ah yes, the famous contagious hamstring. That you find out you've got 1-2 weeks after you're hit, having been spread it around during that period.

Obviously players can sit out for a time to recover and then be reevaluated. The reason it's all of interest is that there's a delay on evidence of it spreading.


Where do the "flu people" come from in Australia? It's not either of the major political parties. Are they influenced by shockjocks or is it organised behaviour drifting over via Facebook from the US? Is it a split along class lines? I'm genuinely curious because Hoops is the only place I've encountered it.


Back on topic, Derrick Jones Jr from the Heat has now tested positive.

Andrew, I suppose you're the dingbat wanting to run a tournament during a pandemic!

Yes I have. Imagine the fear if they reported cumulative statistics on everyone that contracts and dies from or was deemed to have died from influenza every single day

I heard a few players got the flu virus too. Better shut down the league

Any links to the protests?

tennis player Djokovic, who also tested positive.

Novaxx Djocovid

A fourth unnamed Sacramento player has also tested positive.

Game 6 today and he has 3 rebounds; WTF? The guy is a legit 7 footer, you would think at least 6 or 7 rebounds a game would just fall into his hands with all the minutes he is getting. What the hell?