This is terrifying

[bigtree]

...both the syndrome and the relative silence about this as countless schools open to a rash of infections among students.

Parth Upadhyaya @pupadhyaya_
BREAKING: #PennState's director of athletic medicine, Wayne Sebastianelli, says that cardiac MRI scans revealed that roughly 30-35 percent of Big Ten athletes who tested positive for COVID-19 appeared to have myocarditis.

Link to tweet

New data helps illustrate what Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren might have meant when he described “too much medical uncertainty and too many unknown health risks” as reasons for postponing the Big Ten’s 2020-21 fall sports season.

During a State College Area school board of directors meeting on Monday night, Wayne Sebastianelli — Penn State’s director of athletic medicine — made some alarming comments about the link between COVID-19 and myocarditis, particularly in Big Ten athletes. Sebastianelli said that cardiac MRI scans revealed that approximately a third of Big Ten athletes who tested positive for COVID-19 appeared to have myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle that can be fatal if left unchecked.

“When we looked at our COVID-positive athletes, whether they were symptomatic or not, 30 to roughly 35 percent of their heart muscles (are) inflamed,” Sebastianelli said. “And we really just don’t know what to do with it right now. It’s still very early in the infection. Some of that has led to the Pac-12 and the Big Ten’s decision to sort of put a hiatus on what’s happening.”

A day before the Big Ten announced its decision to postpone its fall sports season on Aug. 11, ESPN reported that the long-term effects of myocarditis had been discussed in meetings of presidents and chancellors, commissioners and athletic directors, and health advisory board members from the Big Ten and other conferences around the country.

“You could have a very high-level athlete who’s got a very superior VO2 max and cardiac output who gets infected with COVID and can drop his or her VO2 max and cardiac output just by 10 percent, and that could make them go from elite status to average status,” Sebastianelli said. “We don’t know that. We don’t know how long that’s going to last. What we have seen is when people have been studied with cardiac MRI scans — symptomatic and asymptomatic COVID infections — is a level of inflammation in cardiac muscle that just is alarming.”

read: https://www.centredaily.com/sports/college/penn-state-university/psu-football/article245448050.html

[brush]

1. This is why the Big 10 and Pac 12 stand by their decision not to play fall football.

while the SEC, ACC and Big 12 will take their chances, with the athletes lives IMO, and play.

I stand with the Big 10 and Pac 12.

[BannonsLiver]

2. There's been a lot of pressure on the B10 to reverse course

I suspect this will give them the cover they need to stay closed. I also suspect the timing of the release of this report is related to that pressure. A smart play.

[Claire Oh Nette]

3. Myocarditis

It's Latin for Inflammation of the heart muscle.

Um, that's bad. Real bad. Says the two time rare heart attack survivor who is a savant about heart disease.

[niyad]

18. We are very glad that you are a survivor, and very glad that you are here.

[RockRaven]

4. This "what's the big deal, they didn't die" attitude towards young people getting covid

*could* cripple this country economically, militarily, socially, etc. We could be creating a generation of invalids, or premature deaths looming.

We literally do not, and cannot, know what the long term consequences of covid infections (even asymptomatic ones) are going to be. Trump and his Repuke enablers are not merely cynical and amoral and manipulative and selfish. They are immoral. They are evil. They are traitors.

[bigtree]

7. I think that's a given at this point

...unless there's some drastic turnaround in leadership, and a drastic uptick in folks confident enough to follow President Biden and his medical team.

We're going to suffer in the interim, with long-term consequences, as you say, for this generation's future health. I think it's unavoidable, frankly, looking at how divided Americans are about the responses and the consequences of our behavior.

Link to tweet

[CaptYossarian]

5. How can we do "survival of the fittest" when our fittest are unfit?

Trump wanted the virus to wave over the country to build our collective immunity.

Continue to wear masks, social distance, wash hands, and wait for a legitimate vaccine. It's survival of the smartest.

[jcgoldie]

6. Just spoke with a chemistry teacher in the HS where I teach math

He has been wearing a red mask with big white A for Alabama. This is southern Illinois and we are teaching remotely right now, so I asked him about it he told me his daughter is studying geology there. Having read the stories this past week about the Covid outbreak they are experiencing in Tuscaloosa I asked him how she's doing. He said everything is fine they only have more cases because there is more testing there...

[genxlib]

8. There is some truth to this

But I would not say "only".

And despite all of the criticism (sometimes insulting), I am one of those parents that sent my daughter off to college.

I can't speak for the testing at Alabama but my daughter's school tested everyone when they arrived. They found many students who had no idea that they were positive. So those were cases that would not have been discovered otherwise.

Since then, they have had cases rise based on exposure on and near campus. Certainly some of these were also asymptomatic and were also only discovered by the fact that testing has been ongoing and relentless.

So both things are true. The cases are going up at school but they are also finding more because they are testing more than any other segment of society.

[bigtree]

10. that misses the point

..it's dangerously tragic for so many students to be directed back into a situation where not only are there a sizable number of infected students returning, but a mostly unknown number of infected, both asymtomatic and with symptoms.

The retort about why there are cases appearing is almost beside the point.

[genxlib]

14. I get your point

But the opposite is also true.

Those previously un-diagnosed asymptomatic kids all came from communities where they were living with parents and grandparents.

The people in their immediate vicinity weren't safe when they were at home either. and in almost every scenario, the people whom they were exposing at home were an even higher level of vulnerability. At least with the testing protocols in place, they could be identified and isolated.

Look, it may not work and the schools may get shut down in a torrent of infections. But Universities have some of the smartest and most innovative people in the world at their disposal. They are working with new tools that didn't even exist a few months ago. I hope they can pull it off because the advances they make could help us all.

[bigtree]

16. from my perspective

...we have so much technology which should make online learning at least adequate, if not entirely able to provide other formative things which in-person offers.

Thing is, it's really not forecast to be all that long (in the span of what amounts to a 'schoolyear' or two) until we develop real vaccines and treatments which make infections managable, if not rare.

The opportunity I see is to explore new ways to expand that online capability to ALL households, and improve on that aspect. Rushing young folk and children back together right now doesn't look to have much of a substantive argument behind it, more than it does a political one. I don't believe a Democratic president would be urging youth back to school today.

It's a risk which isn't weighted at all toward anything worth a damn, and the unknowns, as indicated by this report in the op, are too varied and unfathomable at this point in the pandemic. It's a weakness, from my pov, that we can't just settle folks down about social interactions and the like which drives much of the non-compliance and risk-taking. Better leadership would take care of much of that, imo.

[genxlib]

19. I hear you

However, the benefits of online learning depend a great deal on both the student and the subject.

My daughter absolutely hated online in the spring. It just didn't work for her. Hard to pin down the reasons but I think she is an immersion/experiential learner. We should expect online to be better prepared now than it was in the spring but I still think there is a lot of variation in quality.

More importantly, some subjects translate ok to the digital world. Some don't. STEM is general is harder. Labs, group projects, building stuff, etc. I have an engineering degree and I can tell you that there is no amount of online learning available that could replace what I learned in my labs.

I would say that the risks are being weighed. I am just not sure we entirely understand those risks at this time. That, in itself, is a huge risk and ultimately what this original OP was about. Having said that, there were risks of keeping my daughter home as well whether that be from COVID in our own highly infected community or from depression or a car accident.

I don't have all the answers but I am satisfied with my families decision for my daughter to be on campus. The truth is that all the scenarios sucked for various reasons. We just landed on the one that we felt sucked the least for us.

[bigtree]

20. interesting to hear. You've obviously thought a lot about this

...and you have real-world experience with your daughter which is definitely more esoteric than those of us without school-age family members and the ways we might view things.

It's all so very tragic to me. Yet, I have to remain somewhat optimistic as I see your family moving forward, and I definitely wish you folks all the best we can provide in the months ahead.

[genxlib]

21. Thanks for that

We are all just trying to make it through.

Some day we will look back and marvel about how crazy things were.

Cheers

[dixiegrrrrl]

22. I appreciate your reasoned argument

At first I felt quite shocked by your familie's decision, and it most certainly is different than mine would be.

But you gave us info. in a calm reasoned voice, allowing us to hear you clearly.

I hope your daughter and all your family remain safe and healthy.

[genxlib]

23. Thanks!

I sincerely appreciate it.

[stopdiggin]

9. yeah. so called "scientists" that are just as much

"deniers" as the flat earth crowd. I've worked with a few of them. Makes you want to scream (and punch something).

[jcgoldie]

11. Yeah you think thats bad

Also used to work with a biology teacher who would tell the students in class she could come up with just as many sources that disproved climate change as they could that supported it. WTF?!? Its the sort of revelation that pushes the limits of my professionalism.

[stopdiggin]

13. in the school setting ...

this constitutes malpractice (maybe child abuse?)
It's one thing if you're practicing your horsesh*t on a (consenting?) adult audience ....

Is the history teacher allowed to present "evidence" against the holocaust?
----- -----

[Hekate]

12. Hells' Bells

[KY_EnviroGuy]

15. Therefore, tRump's herd immunity may mean herd heart problems.

That should make for a fine workforce for his so-called economic recovery......


KY..........

[spanone]

17. well, el presidente couldn't give two shits....just open the schools.

vote out the turd on november third