According to the NYTs this a.m., the NCAA plans to vote on Monday on what to do with the Spring sports athletes, i.e. 1) the costs of additional scholarships; 2) roster limits; and 3) whether to just address Senior athletes. An interesting question is “what are the Spring sports”? Are they sports that start in the Spring or end in the Spring? Obviously, the March basketball tournaments are the major events in D1 basketball and this was denied to all the involved players. Should they get another year of eligibility? This is really complex as if a given basketball team has say 5 graduating seniors and they all get another year and the team has 5 incoming recruits you could wind up with 18-20 eligible players on some squads vs. no change in number of players on another squad in the same league. Interesting to see what happens.

i cant imagine they would extend basketball eligiblity since they all played a full regular season. true, 64 teams didnt get to play for the championship and a bunch more didn't get to play in the other post-season events, but they were able to play in 30+ games. the sports that just started, like baseball and softball, are a different story.

there's gonna be a cost to the schools to deal with the extra scholarships. in addition, the NCAA is kicked back WAY less to the schools (down from $600M to $225M), which will impact all sports.

Hold the tourney early summer. Problems solved.

I expect NCAA will be very, very considerate of all of its athletes. I don't see a March madness in July because I don't see the virus gone by them. Another year of eligibility is a very possible and fair solution.

No way can any large events be scheduled in early summer because they would stand a very good chance of being cancelled again even if the rate of infection curve gets dramatically leveled The number of cases are expected to fall and rise sharply until there is an effective vaccine widely available to the world community. This is going to be a roller-coaster ride in all likelihood for a long while.

Precisely, we're not even remotely in the clear on this thing. We should not be planning ANY large events for the foreseeable future at this point. I miss sports as much as the next guy here, but the well-being of this country is more important than a basketball tournament at the end of the day.

I still would be surprised if BB players got an extra season. How about Poly? Their season was over since they didn’t qualify for the BW tourney? Spring sports are much different - we weren’t too close to conference play. Lots of moving parts here, not the least the lost cash inflow that schools budget in.

Time will tell but I think there's a very good possibility that the fall and winter sports may be in jeopardy as well. I'm sure the university will take any and all precautionary measures as long as there's no vaccine and people are still getting infected.

I read an article that universities are planning for a delayed football start. All speculation at this point, of course, Just focus on the day to day, and what we can control

Absolutely, for now everyone needs to heed the stay at home orders and do everything they can to stay healthy and try to slow the spread of this deadly disease. Covid 19 is no joke...most of the deaths are from the elderly but perfectly healthy younger people are dying too and struggling to breathe is an awful way to die.

Great story in the NYT today about Sabrina Ionescu. A Graduate of Miramonte HS in Orinda, she is the daughter of Romanian immigrants, She is perhaps the greatest collegiate woman’s basketball player ever playing at Oregon. All time leader in double doubles. 2000, 1000, and 1000 points, rebounds and assists in her career. She was very close to Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna. She spoke at their memorial in LA. Story talks about how hard it was for her dealing with their tragic deaths, and then the cancellation of the National Tournament due to the virus. Her Oregon team was a favorite to win it all this year. A very classy lady indeed!

No way can any large events be scheduled in early summer because they would stand a very good chance of being cancelled again even if the rate of infection curve gets dramatically leveled The number of cases are expected to fall and rise sharply until there is an effective vaccine widely available to the world community. This is going to be a roller-coaster ride in all likelihood for a long while.

Absolutely agree. An effective vaccine with an immune population base will be the key once the infection rate curves down. These darn viruses can be shifty, so hopefully this one will not mutate. Scary stuff.

BTW, this came out from Kevin Blue a few days ago. I don't see any reason why it shouldn't be shared. This is a good time to renew your season tickets. The department needs the support.

Dear Aggie Family,

I hope this note finds you and your family safe during this challenging time. I want to send you another brief update about UC Davis Athletics; these will continue throughout the spring as information becomes available to share.

Spring quarter classes are underway this week with all instruction for students transitioning online. Student-athletes are engaged in their academic work remotely and our coaches and staff are practicing social distancing by working from home.

The safety of our community remains the top priority.

The COVID-19 pandemic is impacting economic activity around the world, and our athletics program is no exception. The cancellation of the NCAA’s winter and spring championships – including the NCAA basketball tournaments – led to an unfortunate early ending to competitive seasons and unexpected shortfall in revenue. All athletics departments around the country, including UC Davis, use a portion of the overall proceeds generated from these NCAA events to help fund team travel, scholarships and other important department operations.

Cancellation of the NCAA’s basketball tournaments means we will receive a lower-than-anticipated NCAA revenue distribution this year, this is why we are focused on operating as efficiently as possible and filling revenue gaps from other sources as best we can.

While we work through the academic, athletic, and welfare adjustments caused by COVID-19, we are continuing to raise financial support for our teams. The annual UC Davis Give Day event, scheduled for April 17 and 18, will remain a focal point of our springtime efforts to generate support for our student-athletes and programs.

In addition to directly supporting our teams, Give Day donors can contribute to a newly established Student-Athlete Emergency Relief Fund that will directly help our athletics department manage the challenges caused by COVID-19. Emergency travel and costs related to remote learning are a couple examples of how the department will support student-athletes. These funds, along with those gifted directly to our teams on Give Day, will make a very important and positive impact on next year’s budgets.

In closing, we would like to acknowledge the extraordinary work done by healthcare professionals, in the Aggie family, who are directly impacting the current crisis. You might have seen recent news reports that UC Davis Health developed an internal test for COVID-19 and is on track to scale up to 1,000 tests per day. Awesome work by our colleagues!

Last week UC Davis Athletics also donated 220 extra N95 masks to assist UCDH with its COVID-19 efforts.

I would also like to recognize Dr. Jeremiah Ray, our head team physician, whose emergency medicine training is playing a critical role in the COVID-19 response at the Sacramento Medical Center.

We recognize that COVID-19 is impacting everyone in different ways and are extremely grateful for your continued support. Please stay safe, and Go Ags.
-Kevin

Lol. The oven mitt is not social distancing.

4yv guy v tv

I saw that Dr. Fauci is predicting another outbreak in the fall. I don't know the exact reasoning but I believe he sees another less- severe wave coming from when business as normal resumes and there is less social- distancing. It would likely be less severe because theoretically the people who had and survived it would've built up some resistance + the hospitals would be better prepared. Not to mention that there will be hundreds of thousands,if not millions, of people who won't be vectors- having died and all.

For that reason I think there will be some creative social- distancing employed. Perhaps one or more football games are played without spectators. With the stands empty they can have the players not currently in the game sit in stands far from each other rather than be cramped standing on the sidelines. Basketball could do the same thing if needed.

It could even impact sports NEXT spring. Baseball + Softball practice in the fall.

Most of the projections now are way off. A Washington study, just from a week ago, is off by a factor of 4 - they said New York would have 50,000 now hospitalized, the number is actually 13,000. Fauci also isn't infallible - he even contradicts himself, and today he said we should wait to restart the economy until there are no more infections or deaths. As in zero. We'll be beyond a Great Depression by then.

Chloroquine has had great results in France, China, and here. Blood plasma from those with antibodies is also being used.

The only number I trust is the death toll. The # of reported infections is misleading because of shortcomings in reporting (Washington state, for example), and there's no way to really account for the untested. The situation is evolving every day- no one can really have a valid claim to be an expert on the coronavirus .

We have a president who from his business background, is business first most of the time.
When even he is forced to change course you get a real idea of how severe this is. While I do expect the re- opening of the country to start soon (maybe even May 1st), it will be staggered + there will still be restrictions. Non- essential businesses that have less foot traffic but that can provide adequate social distancing will be first.

Keeping people apart is saving lives. I think not being able to see sports is a small price for that. I just pretend it's December.

We haven't peaked yet. Not with a handful of states still not doing lockdowns or having just put them in place. Total deaths are still doubling every three days. Agreed that the number of total cases is a bad number to look at for multiple reasons.

There's no way things really open up until there's more widespread testing, both to see who actually has it as well as who has already had it and recovered. Symptoms aren't the same for everyone. Maybe you just got a small fever for a day or two and a bit of a cough. That could be the regular flu or it could be this. Once people know that they have or haven't had it, they can go about their normal lives.

This thing won't be fully gone until we have a vaccine, which is why figuring out who has or hasn't had this is the key. What's likely to happen is we get this thing largely under control now and then it springs back up in the fall once things open up again. That outbreak won't be nearly as bad as this one is, but lives will still be lost.

We have no idea how many cases are out there because of the extreme shortage of reliable tests available. We're making progress but we got way behind early at the national level when the writing was on the wall. We are fortunate here in California to have a governor who took aggressive, measured action early as did our own UCD alum and San Francisco mayor, London Breed. Their decisive action early on has saved lives in California and slowed the rate of infection dramatically.

The human toll is not just how many cases and deaths there are but also the emotional toll this thing is taking on our health care workers and first responders. They are working grueling hours sometimes without good protective equipment and they are caring for a lot of people who are deathly ill and dying alone because their families can't be with them. My niece is an ER nurse in Colorado and she got infected and has recovered and hopes to be back on the job soon. I have another niece who is an anesthesiologist in Virginia and they had to resort to making some protective equipment from plastic sheeting. The psychological toll on our health care workers and first responders will continue to mount as the pandemic continues. They are our heroes and warriors in every sense of the word.

THE TALE OF THE BLACK SYPHILIS

Back in my Army days, 100 years or so ago, there was an Army tale often told about “The Black Syphilis.” Now, syphilis in ancient times was called the “French Disease” because nobody liked the French much back then, so why not name a horrible disease after them, right?. Well, the tale went that the French army (who had been where we were years before) had infected some of the local population with something called the “Black Syphilis.” It was an extremely contagious, deadly, and incurable disease that could be spread by mere touching, that the enemy wanted to use against our soldiers by exposing them to local women who carried the disease. There was no test for it and If you got it, the tale went, there was no cure and you could not be sent home because you would infect the civilian population; so, you would be quarantined until you died or could be put on a ship and sent to special military hospital prison camps in the Philippines where you would stay until a cure was found or you died. What a ridiculous tale! Could never happen.

Fast forward to the year 2020. We are faced with a deadly and highly contagious disease that some of our dear leaders have called “The Chinese Virus” (again, because they don’t like the Chinese much now) for which there is no cure and no vaccine and for those of us who are unlucky enough to get it may well wind up in special military built hospitals or navy hospital ships anchored off shore. The rest of us are quarantined in our homes indefinitely because, in part, there are not enough tests to determine who has the disease and who doesn’t. Another ridiculous tale right? Could never happen. . . .

You seem to ignore the horrible, deadly track record China has acquired. In brief:

1. Horrific "wet markets" selling live & dead bats, rats, snakes, pendolins, & other exotic creatures in confined, unsanitary conditions - likely the vector of animal to human, or animal to animal to human transmission. Some run by the mob. China previously promised to shut them down.

2. At least three major viruses originated in these primitive conditions.

3. China apparently has heavy influence or now runs the WHO via their proxy, Tedros. (One of his first moves was to appoint Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe to a WHO position.)

4. China & Tedros lied about the CV human to human spread for at least 5 weeks.

5. Tedros was against our shutting down travel from China.

6. China was running roughshod over the world & USA until our current President came into office. This shouldn't be a partisan issue - both Bush Jr & Obama failed to change the tide. Supply chai s are now moving, and over 500,000 manufacturing jobs have come home.

Why did the FDA & CDC drop the ball on new tests?

Thankfully, the predicted death total has gone from 2 Million, to 200,000, to now 61,000.