COVID-19 Roundup: Fauci Versus October
This is the latest installment of a series in which the FanGraphs staff rounds up the latest developments regarding the COVID-19 virus’ effect on baseball.
Fauci Warns Against October Baseball
While the very existence of a baseball season remains up in the air, Dr. Anthony Fauci told the Los Angeles Times that he would advise against playing baseball in October, salary dispute aside. “If the question is time, I would try to keep it in the core summer months,” he said, before specifically saying October is a riskier time to play.
“The likelihood is that, if you stick to the core summer months, even though there is no guarantee… If you look at the kinds of things that could happen, there’s no guarantee of anything. You would want to do it at a time when there isn’t the overlap between influenza and the possibility of a fall second wave.”
If avoiding October play is the goal, there isn’t much time left. A 50-game season and regular-length playoff schedule would need to start by the middle of July at the very latest, which already looks difficult given the current state of negotiations. It would also require renegotiation of postseason TV contracts, not exactly a quick process in regular times. It’s simply a further obstacle to getting baseball back on the field.
When it does come back, though, Fauci will be there. Of his hometown Nationals allowing fans at games in 2021, he said: “Unless you have a dramatic diminution in cases, I would feel comfortable in spaced seating, where you fill one-half or one-third or whatever it is of the stadium, and everybody is required to wear a mask in the stadium.”
Texas, Arizona, and Florida COVID Cases Spike
MLB has avoided a “bubble” plan, the type they initially pitched in March and that the NBA and NHL have taken up as a way to host postseason tournaments. That leaves baseball at the mercy of local infection rates, and three states, two of which are home to multiple teams, are headed in a troubling direction.
Texas and Florida, and Arizona, the site of MLB’s proposed bubble, all reported record numbers of new COVID cases this week. All three states are in the midst of reopening. This isn’t an isolated problem — Oklahoma, Oregon, and Nevada all hit new highs in the past week as well — but the three warm-weather states are likely part of baseball’s plan for fallback sites in the event of a fall second wave.
Hospitalizations are up in all three states as well, and the situation is looking grim in Arizona. “ICU to be expanded, hopefully, in coming days,” Dr. Steven Oscherwitz, an infectious disease expert at Tucson Medical Center, said on Monday night. “Not sure where people needing ICU care will be able to go, since most AZ (Arizona) hospitals are pretty full now.”
Florida’s positive test rate is spiking, a sign that the new caseload isn’t merely due to expanded testing but also reflects an increase in viral spread. Texas may be in better shape, though it’s early to say for sure — the positive test rate bottomed out in May and has been creeping slowly higher ever since. Arizona’s is near 20%, nearly triple the other two states. A dispute between MLB and the MLBPA might not be the only thing holding up the season at this point.
Players and Staff Test Positive
During Monday’s MLB media blitz, the AP obtained a league memo stating that several players and staff have tested positive for COVID. That’s hardly surprising — baseball has a tremendous number of employees, and the US has more than two million confirmed cases so far; it would be more surprising if no one affiliated with the league were infected.
Still, it’s a reminder that getting back to play doesn’t solely mean agreeing on a number of games. The league and the players association remain close on health protocols, but they’ll still face obstacles in any return to the field. Finishing the season with no new COVID cases seems unlikely, even without the increased risk that comes with traveling to play games.
US Open To Take Place On Schedule
While sports leagues worldwide work towards new protocols and plans for resuming play, Andrew Cuomo announced that the US Open will take place on schedule in Queens this August. Tennis draws its top competitors from across the globe, which makes this move unexpected to say the least — Wimbledon has been canceled for the year, while the French Open is currently scheduled for October and is making significant logistical changes including greatly cutting the number of players invited.
Tennis players aren’t universally excited about playing in Flushing. Ash Barty, currently ranked No. 1 in the world and a presumptive favorite, expressed concern about playing overseas — she’s an Australian citizen, and the country has been successful in fighting COVID. Novak Djokovic, the clear men’s favorite, was even more resolute. He told Serbian TV station RTS that most players he talks with “were quite negative” about playing in the US Open and that for him, “most probably the season will continue on clay (in Europe) at the beginning of September.”
Baseball won’t face the same logistical hurdles — few of tennis’ top stars reside in the United States. But it’s a reminder that merely saying sports will be played doesn’t make it a picnic for the players, and doesn’t ensure that everything will go off without a hitch. Tennis is already back in the form of an exhibition currently being played in France features several top 10 players, with an extremely spread out schedule and a small field. But staging a mega-event like the US Open will be difficult, even with the state’s backing in making it happen.
Ben is a writer at FanGraphs. He can be found on Bluesky @benclemens.
With the caveat that I’m not a doctor, isn’t the idea of finishing by October contingent upon the idea that warmer weather helps to slow the virus?
And aren’t the rising numbers in countries such as Brazil, and states like NC, TX, and FL, where the weather has been very hot, kind of put a damper on the idea that warm weather is helping us?
There are competing factors here – reopening of society and more human contact vs. warm weather. From what I’ve read it seems pretty certain that warm weather does help reduce the spread of the virus (though by no means does it just make it go away), it’s just that the relaxing of social distancing, refusal by some to wear masks, people (incorrectly) thinking it’s okay to just go back to normal now, etc. has allowed the virus to spread more freely even in a more difficult environment for it.
I am a doctor, but not an epidemiologist.
It’s hard to say. You don’t know what the numbers would be like in Florida, Texas, and Arizona if they were in colder climates. Maybe it would be worse. You can compare March and April in those places to now, but it would be difficult to control for all variables like when stay at home orders were imposed/eased, how strictly those orders were followed, Spring Break, tourism (minimal), and a host of other things including the question that some of the data out of Florida may not be all that reliable – a scientist claims she was fired from the Health Department for refusing to massage the COVID data. I think all you can say is that sunshine, warm weather, and humidity are nowhere near 100% protective.
As far as Brazil goes, I doubt that we are getting accurate COVID data from there. Bolsonaro has managed to handle the situation there even worse than Trump here. I’ve been hearing from months from Brazilian physicians that the situation is very, very bad there. Poor people especially are dying without ever getting into a hospital and whether those deaths and cases are getting counted accurately is extremely unlikely in their opinion. Their testing rate is about one tenth the US. Places like Sao Paolo and Rio de Janiero are the perfect place for an epidemic to spread. High population density, low GDP per capita, big wealth gap, very poor public health services for the uninsured. The poor have good access to healthcare in Brasil, but it is of questionable quality.
Two things to keep in mind:
1. In certain locations, rising numbers of positive cases may simply be a byproduct of more widespread testing, which would have the impact of causing the reported incidence rate to “catch up” to the true incidence rate. This is likely part of the reason for the recent rapid rise of reported positive cases in India, for example.
2. Attempting to predict the spread of COVID-19 is so fraught with unknowns that FiveThirtyEight, who are in the business of forecasting fearlessly, won’t go anywhere near prognosticating future incidence or mortality from COVID-19. So anyone’s guess made before, say, late July or August, is bound to be based on so much noise in the hypothetical models and supporting data that they should be taken with a grain, nay, a full saltlick of salt.
(LMHAO….too easy)
Everyone else responding to you has made excellent comments, but it’s important to note that places like NC, TX, AZ, AL, and FL are just entering the time of year where it’s very unpleasant to be outside AND they relaxed a whole bunch of restrictions on gathering indoors. It’s unlikely that heat or sunlight is going to make much of a difference about indoor transmission, but I would not be surprised if people started interacting way, way more and primarily indoors recently.
In contrast, northern states are just entering the pleasant outdoor season and they mostly have restrictions in place (or have relaxed them slower). Here, sunlight and heat could help quite a bit.
In any case, this is all moot IMO because we’re not out of the first wave yet, so worrying about the second is a bit ridiculous. It’s possible that places like NY and MI can beat it back for a time (they’ve made huge progress), but it’s going to be hard to keep it out if other states aren’t as vigilant.
Brazil is in late fall right now
An uptick in cases about 2 weeks after a bunch of people decided to get together and walk the streets in addition to more testing being done. Shocked that cases are going up, I don’t think so.
On the other hand, what are these masks you speak of?
I apologize if this comment seems a little random, but I haven’t been able to keep this out of my mind all morning.
Tangentially related, I took a look over at the MLBTradeRumors comment section for the article on Dr. Fauci’s statements.
They’re not……pretty.
Judging by the number of upvotes (which are not necessarily representative of baseball fans as a whole) on these comments, it appears a lot of baseball fans have it out for Dr. Fauci.
The first top comment reads:
– “The Same idiot who said 2 million would die, with everything done right.” followed by “I’m done with that idiot.”
Then there are these upvoted gems:
– “where is this dr. about protesting, looting, etc — no problem, but baseball geez do not stand near each other…”
– “Someone muzzle him.”
– “Fauci is an idiot. He’s been wrong about so much it’s ridiculous.”
I see this types of comments all the time on the Facebook-related pages as well. I really cannot believe that many people seriously deny the danger of the virus or look over the carefully worded statements the Doctor has put out over the last 5 months that indicate a hesitance or an aversion to have mass gatherings, whether they be protests or sports events.
Agreed. My comments in no way were meant to doubt Dr. Fauci’s knoweldge…
I didn’t even see that comment as I was typing, no worries.
It is certainly concerning, and really just disheartening. And in light of these sorts of sentiments, it isn’t so surprising we’re seeing an uptick in cases.
I know, right – Heaven forbid some people not want to be lorded over by a Doctor who speaks in the name of Science!
Those commentors probably don’t even have college degrees, amirite?
does a degree in business or law make a person any more likely to understand medicine and epidemiology (or science in general) than your high school student?
I like the news at MLBTR, but the comments are best avoided.
Why should anyone listen to this guy? What has he done? I mean he was instrumental in the fight against AIDS 30 years ago but he’s over the hill now. And he’s certainly out of touch with right-thinking, smart patriots like ex-MLB star Aubrey Huff (long known for his wisdom) who just proclaimed that he will never wear a mask in public again!
It’s best to just get it over with and let our natural God-given immunity do it’s thing! That’s why I am urging all American Patriots to join me in every Trump rally across the country and PACK those arenas to the gill! And remember – masks are for cowards and commies. NO masks. No social distancing. Let’s give our great leader what he wants!
eagerly awaiting your mockery of those who actually flouted Dr. Fauci’s advice by gathering en masse in the streets for protests and demonstrations
To be fair, I think Fauci has been too optimistic throughout much of this whole thing, and that his comments on this are incredibly optimistic. He still seems to think that we can get mask-wearing to be more or less universal and that testing can be scaled up, and I am not seeing any moves on that front.
So the mass protests in Minnesota happened over two weeks ago – has anyone heard about the massive increase in cases and deaths out there?
I had read reports of a decrease in Minnesota but that was around 8 to 10 days after protests started. I expect a spike from any new reports as the timeline increases past 14 days. If you just want to talk about deaths the murder rate in areas with protests increased around 75% in Minneapolis and up to 250% in other places like Chicago and L.A.
It’s too soon to tell–it seems like we don’t see much in the data until about a month. But early returns are promising. The keys here are likely (1) it was outside in warm, sunny weather and (2) it looks like everyone was masked. If the masks really do make a difference, that would be a huge bit of news. Previously, we’ve seen evidence that masks played a huge role in preventing community spread in extremely dense cities in Japan–that as long as people were not talking to each other and wearing masks (and not taking the masks off to do things like eat or drink) things were pretty good. But the protesters where chanting loudly, and we know that the louder the volume the more community spread (which is why choirs are so dangerous). I was convinced the masks wouldn’t work because everyone was yelling–but maybe they did.
Of course, places that threw a lot of people in jails without their masks don’t help, and tear gas increases coughing and such, so there are a lot of variables at play. It’s not a great experiment.
I know you were just trying to troll us here, but the news here is actually surprisingly encouraging. There are a lot of confounding factors here and we wouldn’t know yet, but if it doesn’t spread this is incredibly good news and points to a universal masking policy that could lead to resumption of virtually all outdoor activity in the hot and sunny summer months (which won’t be relevant by the time we know in most northern locales but but could be relevant in the southeast and southwest in the fall and spring). Although you probably still can’t have people waiting in line for hotdogs inside, so I don’t see how this helps baseball specifically.
Here’s a recent study concluding that face masks have been far more important in reducing spread than simple lockdowns:
https://www.pnas.org/node/931542.full
With regard to temperature, there have been studies showing some effect, but it’s not large enough to pin one’s hopes on.
My guess is that if the owners believe they can’t play baseball in October, they don’t want to play at all. They want the playoffs A LOT more than they want regular season games. That’s where the big TV money is for them. Unless they can find a way to create playoffs in September that end by early October and convince their TV partners that those are real playoffs and deserve playoff type dollars, they will just take their ball and go home.
I believe I’ve heard on a podcast from someone with legit connections that MLB want the playoffs to be right before the election. Which makes a lot of sense. In the end it seems if we can believe anything these days, it’s that money trumps everything
In the last couple days, we talked to an E.R. doctor, a non-infectious disease doctor, and someone who works in medical research about what they’re seeing. This conversation had nothing to do with baseball and was more about being parents of kids of similar ages, and thinking through probabilities of what the next six months are going to look like.
What’s happening in Arizona right now seems to dispel the myth that New York’s outbreak was caused by population density and mass transit. Those factors certainly may have exacerbated the situation, but the absence of those factors in other metropolitan areas should not provide a false sense of comfort.
All three folks we talked to have concerns about a false sense of security around the mortality rate. A mortality rate is not necessarily linear to the number of cases. The mortality rate when doctors, hospitals and supplies are in capacity will be less than a situation where those three factors are constrained. The March predictions of catastrophe from such constraint (thankfully!) did not come to bear. But those constraints are slowly creeping back up in certain pockets of the country, meaning that there’s an inflection point that may come where mortality rates increase without any change in the virus itself. Some ER’s are now at 70-80% capacity between normal sickness, elective surgeries, and COVID patients. It doesn’t take much of an increase in caseload to push those ER’s to capacity. And no one thinks that governments or citizens have the stomach to rapidly limit elective surgeries again. (In rural communities, hospitals are facing bankruptcy as a result of their losses from weeks and weeks without elective surgeries… there are so many things happening in rural America that metropolitan American does not see or think about… but that’s a different topic entirely…)
And all three folks we talked to were severely disheartened at how skeptical a huge chunk of America is of doctors, or anyone in a position of “credential” right now. To be credentialed is a negative in the eyes of a large number of people, which saddens me greatly. They see defiance beyond stubborn pride, to the point that they are being accused of being “flat-earthers” in the COVID setting for believing there is any material level of risk that the average person should be concerned about. (Where I live, right now, 75% of new cases are individuals between ages 24-59. So… that’s data that is hard to argue with for those who think this only affects the elderly or infirm. The few people we know in that age range who have contracted it were all seemingly healthy but had undiagnosed health conditions, including one untreated and undiagnosed diabetic. That could apply to, quite literally, any one of us.)
So, I’m quickly flipping into the camp that finding a financial answer to the baseball stalemate may wind up mattering a whole lot less than exogenous factors to the sport that led us to these discussions being necessary in the first place. Put all the financial stuff aside. They don’t know what they’d do if there were a couple of infections in a clubhouse, or among the staff. How do you have a season if a team has to take a 14-day quarantine break? Are we looking at 14 forfeits? What happens if one person dies, perhaps not a player but a trainer or staff member? Or, a player with an undiagnosed health condition? For those who think that’s not possible, look at Trey Mancini for the most extreme example.
Also, the owners don’t want legal liability for a COVID outbreak if they make every reasonable attempt to provide a safe work environment. Because nothing is certain, outbreaks can happen even with good preventative care, and that’s a liability that no one wants on their hands. (In my own company, since we can’t obtain any legal liability protection against COVID, we’ve allowed all employees to choose whether to WFH or not. Even if I thought it were safe to call everyone back to work, I wouldn’t, because one illness could lead to a lawsuit that costs me my business in an event that I literally can’t insure against.)
I am not an epidemiologist, and I do not do infectious disease modeling, but I know a lot of them through my work. They are bracing for things to get very, very bad.
Evidence from Japan (an exceptionally dense country) suggests that if we had universal masking and kept the restaurants and bars and big events shut down we could reduce the cases enough to do testing and tracing at a viable level, but none of those things are happening. Unless you are and were living in Seattle or NYC, March is going to look like child’s play this fall.
If it’s a bad idea to be playing baseball too deep into fall, isn’t it an equally bad idea to be playing football and basketball all through the fall and deep into winter?
Much worse, especially since all NBA stadiums are indoors and I think more of the football stadiums are too.
Stop using your brain to think and go with the feelings instead, Mitch. Calling out the laughable hypocrisy of Fauci makes the lemmings upset.
On a somewhat related note, can anyone from Fangraphs explain why they allow Fox News ads to be served on their site (I just received one)? Why does fangraphs allow traffic to be directed to a news source that is racist, biased, and supports conspiracy theories and Tr*mp?
Ads are targeted based on browsing history
I can’t speak to the way Fangraphs operate but generally online advertising is done through third party agencies who buy ads and sell space on websites. Most often neither the buyer nor the seller knows what ad is going to appear where.
Besides, who cares if a company you don’t like spends money supporting a site that you do? As a former member who let my membership lapse because I have not worked in over three months, I’m glad for any ad dollars FanGraphs takes in.
The ad-free membership allows me to think about other things
This bum Fauci is still considered an expert? Lmao
I find Fauci’s comments inexplicably positive. Yes, things will likely be worse in the fall, but we’re not even out of the first wave yet, so exactly how far does he think we’re going to get?
How many times does Dr. Fauci and the CDC have to be wrong, before people start questioning their inaccuracies?
How many times does everyone have to be wrong before you understand that biology is not physics, where accurate forecasts can be made (even baseball can be predicted far more accurately than biology). Biology is extremely messy, and when you add psychology, which inevitably factors into a pandemic, it becomes even more unpredictable.
Fauci was spectacularly wrong when, back in late January, he said this was nothing to worry about. But so were a lot of other people, and the few who weren’t could easily have turned out to be wrong. If the Chinese had acted a little sooner–and there’s a lot of evidence that they could have– the virus might have been halted early, with far less spread to other parts of the world. And yes, the CDC messed up in a major way with the delay in testing, but that’s not on Fauci, who’s not associated with the CDC.
I’m not aware that Fauci has been wrong about anything significant recently. He was right about HCQ. Not that it didn’t work, as no one knew for sure at the time, but that the studies that suggested it did were not strong enough to justify people taking it. His early estimates of the mortality rate, and the proportion of infected people who are asymptomatic, appear to have been very much in the right range.
Recently, he has advised people not to look at the absolute number of new cases, but the rate, as a proportion of existing cases, as well as hospitalization rates. He understands that an increase in cases can be partly due to an increase in tests, which is why hospitalizations are so important. But unfortunately, not all states publish their C19 hospitalizations, and of those that do, some only publish current–those in the hospital at the present time–and some only cumulative. And hospitalizations in some states that are now opening up may increase, because people with other diseases, who were unable or afraid to seek treatment for them during the lockdowns, are now doing that.
So according to Fauci October baseball is too dangerous, but the NFL can play in the fall?
Why people still listen to this “expert” is beyond me.
Fauci has not said the NFL can play in the fall. He has always said it depends, and in his most recent statement, he’s been very negative on the idea.
I think in the current political climate, it was very unproductive for Fauci to say that. While there’s little to be gained from the statement, it will no doubt further the mentality of some that the scientists are all secretly collaborating against conservatives.