Anonymous wrote:PP, just wanted to add:

The other thing driving my logic is looking at places where infection rates are low and controlled. What are they doing in those places? What are the best practices?

From my research, there are two best options: One is no contact sports at all. The other is universal mask-wearing, on and off the field.

So -- easy call, for me.

You need to do more research on that. China has the lowest infection rate right now. They still had outbreaks a few months ago when universal mask-wearing is in place, so it probably help but not magical. Meanwhile, they literately seal people at home, almost no one is allowed to leave home. and citizens survived on limited delivery of food arranged by government.

People who has unrealistic exception to get rid of this virus has no idea the real cost of achieving that.

Anonymous wrote:PP, just wanted to add:

The other thing driving my logic is looking at places where infection rates are low and controlled. What are they doing in those places? What are the best practices?

From my research, there are two best options: One is no contact sports at all. The other is universal mask-wearing, on and off the field.

So -- easy call, for me.

Here's an interesting video offering a different perspective. Worth a watch at least, even if you disagree with it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UvFhIFzaac&feature=youtu.be

PP, just wanted to add:

The other thing driving my logic is looking at places where infection rates are low and controlled. What are they doing in those places? What are the best practices?

From my research, there are two best options: One is no contact sports at all. The other is universal mask-wearing, on and off the field.

So -- easy call, for me.

Anonymous wrote:It amazes me that so many people don't seem interested in erring on the side of caution.

This is kind of where I fall, though not precisely:

On one hand, it seems like most of our research is turning up the same thing, namely, that this particular individual activity -- open play, outdoors, unmasked -- is not very high on the risk table. Not zero, and not high. Low-moderate? Low, because outdoors and contact is not sustained over time, but moderate, because there is contact and heavy breathing. Ok then.

But there are a couple missing pieces of the equation.

One is, what are infection rates in our area. For me, the most useful metrics are both how many people are infected, and whether increasingly more people are becoming infected right now, or whether things are trending in the other direction. (This website is a good guide https://rt.live/ . If r>1, then infection rates are increasing.) In Maryland and VA, infection rates are currently climbing a bit, so that suggests to me that from a public health perspective -- if not an indvidual choice perspective -- we should be doing everything we reasonably can to drive rates down and keep r<1. Maybe mask-wearing on the field doesn't prevent a *lot* of infections, but risk management is kind of like saving money: Sure, saving 5 bucks doesn't matter right much for one person right now, but if you save 5 bucks a week, that matters. Risk kind of sort of aggregates like that. So we should save every little bit we can, so we can "spend" elsewhere.

To that point: The other missing piece of the equation is, how high a priority is this, relative to other priorities? For me, having some soccer is a high priority! It's my kid's best opportunity for exercise and socializing these days. On the other hand, for us in MoCo, opening schools has to be the #1 priority, for so many reasons -- the community really needs this.

So for these reasons, if there's a chance that we can prevent even marginal additional infections, mask-wearing on the field is totally worth it. There should absolutely be exeptions where medically warranted. But every little bit counts.

Hope everyone's having a good weekend!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It amazes me that some people are so afraid of COVID that they can't see by now the need to make informed decisions and not just reflexively say things like "err on the side of caution." I assume you get in a car, maybe occasionally drive over the speed limit, you indulge in some foods or beverages that may increase your cancer risk. Why not just err on the side of caution and not do any of those things? You inherently make risk decisions and don't just "err on the side of caution" but some people refuse to listen to the data and science and accept a sliver of risk. It's like their COVID-traumatized from the first few months of this pandemic when the world was ending and we didn't have any info about how it spread and assumed the worst.

Also, let's get serious, you can have adults inside a restaurant at 50% capacity, up to 6 per table and not all that far apart, for long sustained interactions indoors without masks, and kids can't play outside without them? Come on ...

Wow, those were the worst bunch of analogies I've ever heard. Not even apples to oranges...like apples to elephants.
At least the other reply to the "erring" post made sense.

Yeah those were bad. The main difference is that you're talking about known risks, while there's still so little known about covid, especially the long term effects.
And comparing restaurants, where it's easy to distance, with a soccer field, where you're breathing heavily and running into people? Yeah, sure.

Anonymous wrote:It amazes me that some people are so afraid of COVID that they can't see by now the need to make informed decisions and not just reflexively say things like "err on the side of caution." I assume you get in a car, maybe occasionally drive over the speed limit, you indulge in some foods or beverages that may increase your cancer risk. Why not just err on the side of caution and not do any of those things? You inherently make risk decisions and don't just "err on the side of caution" but some people refuse to listen to the data and science and accept a sliver of risk. It's like their COVID-traumatized from the first few months of this pandemic when the world was ending and we didn't have any info about how it spread and assumed the worst.

Also, let's get serious, you can have adults inside a restaurant at 50% capacity, up to 6 per table and not all that far apart, for long sustained interactions indoors without masks, and kids can't play outside without them? Come on ...

Wow, those were the worst bunch of analogies I've ever heard. Not even apples to oranges...like apples to elephants.
At least the other reply to the "erring" post made sense.

Anonymous wrote:It amazes me that so many people don't seem interested in erring on the side of caution.

What amazes me, when there are several extremely well reasoned posts above, is why people like the PP do not understand how much thought most people put into these decisions. You might want to stay in, have no contact with anyone, and stay as safe as possible. Please do.

Others recognize that while safety is important, there are consequences for continuing to isolate developing young minds and bodies and to deprive them from healthy activities they love. Some kids might be able to easily transition away from their sports to running, walking or kicking the ball outside, but others thrive on the social, emotional, and physical benefits of playing team sports. They were shut in and locked down for three months. An active lifestyle is all about momentum, making it easy to settle into a sedentary lifestyle. Returning to sport benefits kids socially, physically, and emotionally, and those benefits, for the right child, are worth the risk. I wouldn't put my 6 year old who has never played soccer into organized sport during this time, but for kids who have played for years, their sport is a part of who they are.

If I have to choose between the COVID risk of outdoor soccer and the potential that I'm setting my teenage daughter up for a lifetime of body image issues because I'm nagging her to exercise and she knows she is putting on weight while she is away from her sport, I choose soccer.

It amazes me that some people are so afraid of COVID that they can't see by now the need to make informed decisions and not just reflexively say things like "err on the side of caution." I assume you get in a car, maybe occasionally drive over the speed limit, you indulge in some foods or beverages that may increase your cancer risk. Why not just err on the side of caution and not do any of those things? You inherently make risk decisions and don't just "err on the side of caution" but some people refuse to listen to the data and science and accept a sliver of risk. It's like their COVID-traumatized from the first few months of this pandemic when the world was ending and we didn't have any info about how it spread and assumed the worst.

Also, let's get serious, you can have adults inside a restaurant at 50% capacity, up to 6 per table and not all that far apart, for long sustained interactions indoors without masks, and kids can't play outside without them? Come on ...

It amazes me that so many people don't seem interested in erring on the side of caution.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If there's no risk to playing contact sports outside, why do all professional soccer leagues around the world test players before every game?

No one has said there is no risk. We said "low" risk.

And to answer the question, maybe because the soccer leagues are . . . professional? As in businesses with television contract that will suffer if there is an outbreak.

Anonymous wrote:If there's no risk to playing contact sports outside, why do all professional soccer leagues around the world test players before every game?

No one has said there is no risk. We said "low" risk.

If there's no risk to playing contact sports outside, why do all professional soccer leagues around the world test players before every game?

Until Montgomery County gets rid of the mask rule, if the kids want to play in Montgomery County, they have to wear the mask.

Anonymous wrote:This times a million. There have been enough soccer and other outdoor youth sports games around the country over the past few months to know if this is a big risk via contact tracing. It just isn't showing to be the case. Not zero, but not any real evidence by now. Like the last poster said, the team outbreaks have generally been traced to locker rooms, travel, and socializing. Let's focus our efforts where the real spread problems are based on the evidence and let our kids have just the smallest bit of enjoyment in these crazy times to play freely and allow them to get exercise at full exertion when there's no school or recess. There's probably greater odds of inducing a serious asthma attack or other breathing issue in a kid than there is of spreading COVID playing soccer outdoors and leading to any serious infection or death in the child or spread to someone else higher risk, given our county's current numbers and transmission.

And even keeping the analysis closer than around the country, boatloads of games have gone on in NOVA and other MD counties without masks over the past couple months. I have yet to hear any evidence of this causing a spread. There's really no logical reason for MoCo to go out on a limb against the region and CDC, and in the meantime it is just killing and may do permanent damage to the county's soccer infrastructure (e.g. nobody from outside the county will play at Soccerplex).

This extremely low risk, that nobody else agrees with, is really worth the harm? MoCo has become allergic to risk over COVID fears and shown an utter inability to perform a risk assessment. You can't eliminate all risk in life. We are six months into this pandemic, with some good data points on how it spreads, to make some tough decisions such as masks not being needed all the time for all ages for outdoor youth sports.

Well said.

Also, Elrich himself wrote an angry letter to Hogan to argue about safety of outdoor concert (his main hobby) during phrase 2, and open it right away after state enters phrase 3.

Meanwhile, youth sport are not even in phrase 2 (all other counties does not enforce mask in phrase 2).

This times a million. There have been enough soccer and other outdoor youth sports games around the country over the past few months to know if this is a big risk via contact tracing. It just isn't showing to be the case. Not zero, but not any real evidence by now. Like the last poster said, the team outbreaks have generally been traced to locker rooms, travel, and socializing. Let's focus our efforts where the real spread problems are based on the evidence and let our kids have just the smallest bit of enjoyment in these crazy times to play freely and allow them to get exercise at full exertion when there's no school or recess. There's probably greater odds of inducing a serious asthma attack or other breathing issue in a kid than there is of spreading COVID playing soccer outdoors and leading to any serious infection or death in the child or spread to someone else higher risk, given our county's current numbers and transmission.

And even keeping the analysis closer than around the country, boatloads of games have gone on in NOVA and other MD counties without masks over the past couple months. I have yet to hear any evidence of this causing a spread. There's really no logical reason for MoCo to go out on a limb against the region and CDC, and in the meantime it is just killing and may do permanent damage to the county's soccer infrastructure (e.g. nobody from outside the county will play at Soccerplex).

This extremely low risk, that nobody else agrees with, is really worth the harm? MoCo has become allergic to risk over COVID fears and shown an utter inability to perform a risk assessment. You can't eliminate all risk in life. We are six months into this pandemic, with some good data points on how it spreads, to make some tough decisions such as masks not being needed all the time for all ages for outdoor youth sports.