Coronavirus in football

noodlehair said:
Well yes but this doesn't explain why only footballers in this country are having this problem while in Spain and Germany for example where we know a very high percentage of players are vaccinated, there's been comparatively little disruption.

Also a lot of employers do offer sick pay. I get full sick pay. We go into people's homes every day as part of our job so test at least twice a week. We've had no disruption either in our office or across the country. Same seems to apply across the board with the only apparent exception being professional football clubs, and only in one specific country.

Maybe I'm being cynical but I think it has more to do with a) the stats showing that over a quarter of footballers in this country are anti vaccine morons...which frankly is very obviously a big factor in this and fully deserving of criticism/zero sympathy and b) PL clubs in particular using the situation to try and gain some advantage or at the very least avoid putting themselves at a disadvantage.

But on point a)...if the whole country was that stupid we actually would be fecked and already in another lockdown, so it pretty much explains what is happening by itself, and it's a reported fact by the football league.
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Well I wouldn't like to comment on Spain but I know in Germany the government takes it an awful lot more seriously than ours in the UK, and most importantly they've been as consistent as possible in their messaging all the way through. I suspect that has a lot to do with it as it will have affected the attitudes of players, clubs and leagues as well as the wider public.

I'd also add that a footballer's job is an inherently higher risk one than most in the sense they tend to exercise (heavy breathing, shouting) in groups both indoors and out, play contact sports, eat indoors together, travel on coaches, planes, stay in hotels etc. If the clubs weren't following the enhanced Covid protocols, using bubbles etc then it is entirely unsurprising to me that the new variant would get them pretty quickly.
 
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noodlehair said:
PL clubs in particular using the situation to try and gain some advantage or at the very least avoid putting themselves at a disadvantage.
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I've been saying for quite a while pretty much every player and manager who has chimed in with an opinion on whether the season should be restarted/voided (summer 2020), had a circuit breaker (last winter) or suspended (now) just happened/happen to have an opinion which neatly lined/lines up with what best suited/suits their club.
 
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simonhch said:
Just seeing the vaccination numbers amongst players, under 60%, it’s hard not to get angry at this latest outbreak. At what point are we going to make vaccinations mandatory for everyone? These cnuts are putting everyone else at risk. fecking fed up of it.

I just had two employees test positive, turns out they weren’t vaccinated. I’m now making everyone provide a negative test within 48 hours of working a shift, to be able to work, unless they can provide their original vaccination card and we have a copy on file. It amounts to vaccination being the only viable way for them to keep their job.
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If you think that it is only the unvaccinated people catching and spreading the virus, you are massively mistaken.

It is not only the unvaccinated passing the virus on to the vaccinated. There is infection and transmission between vaccinated people as well.

Look at Gibraltar. The vaccination rate is 140%. That means everyone has been double jabbed and a portion has had the booster. Yet it is experiencing high numbers of Covid cases. Similarly, Waterford in Ireland is one of the highest vaccinated places in Europe. But currently has 1 in 100 people with Covid, which is one of the highest in the world at the moment.

A lot of people need to get educated and learn that it is not simply a disease of the unvaccinated and that being vaccinated does not mean you cannot get the disease, become ill from it or pass it on to other vaccinated and unvaccinated people alike.
 
I would suggest that ethnicity, plays a bigger part in the UK as a whole than it does in Germany for example.

The UK for sure has many people who refuse to take the vaccine, but for all different reasons.

This is why the UK will struggle to get everyone vaccinated and I doubt very much the government will Implement mandatory vaccinations.
 
choccy77 said:
I would suggest that ethnicity, plays a bigger part in the UK as a whole than it does in Germany for example.

The UK for sure has many people who refuse to take the vaccine, but for all different reasons.

This is why the UK will struggle to get everyone vaccinated and I doubt very much the government will Implement mandatory vaccinations.
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Even if you the vaccination rate is 100%, you'll then have to have boosters every 6 months indefinitely to maintain "full" vaccination.

How does that help football in any case? The vaccines do little to stop transmission and cases. The league will still have exactly the same problem if footballers are allowed to live a normal life that involves mixing with the general population.
 
TwoSheds said:
Well I wouldn't like to comment on Spain but I know in Germany the government takes it an awful lot more seriously than ours in the UK, and most importantly they've been as consistent as possible in their messaging all the way through. I suspect that has a lot to do with it as it will have affected the attitudes of players, clubs and leagues as well as the wider public.

I'd also add that a footballer's job is an inherently higher risk one than most in the sense they tend to exercise (heavy breathing, shouting) in groups both indoors and out, play contact sports, eat indoors together, travel on coaches, planes, stay in hotels etc. If the clubs weren't following the enhanced Covid protocols, using bubbles etc then it is entirely unsurprising to me that the new variant would get them pretty quickly.
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Bayern had 5 unvaccinated players that had to go into quarantine because of vaccinated players having Covid. The result is now that Kimmich and Choupo-Moteng have gotten Covid and have their comebacks delayed after quarantine because of infiltration in their lungs - Gnabry got his second jab (has had Covid in April - too early to get a jab in the summer break) and Musiala his first. Musiala is a special story as in June/July the German Stiko did not recommend the jabs for Teenagers and later on some doctors of the German FA recommended not to vaccinate throughout the season and wait till winter break. Therefore e.g. Musiala's younger siblings were vaccinated (his mom has the reign) and Musiala not.

I guess the theatre the German media made about Kimmich (he was the topic in any political talkshow - every politician etc. talked about it - and that for weeks) might have moved the last non-vaccinated German or Bundesliga players (that weren't really antivaxxers) to get jabbed...

The theatre around the Bayern players probably has made the clubs to follow the Corona protocols stricter again - test the teams more again and tell their players to keep distance even in their private time. We had single cases in the recent weeks - but not the Exodus in teams like you have it now in the EPL were too many players are infected or have to quarantine.
 
I thought the comments by Klopp were quite reasonable. He isn't against a break per se but he doesn't see 100% the benefit of it. Simply a "break" won't do much, if done so they need some sort of concept accompanying it. As in, force all the players into a bubble, do a two weeks training camp, make vaccination/booster compulsory in order to play (putting aside how legal/realistic these measures would be) and then restart. Just no games but otherwise business as usual (within the club as well as within their private lifes) most likely won't have an impact whatsoever except for the fact that it'll probably other clubs with half the squad in quarantine than now.

Also the question needs to be ask, what exactly is the main aim of a break? To get the situation regarding infections under control or to create a "fairer competitive" situation. Because i can relate to the latter aspect but I don't see how you can guarantee a fairer baseline with a break because you might run into the same situation just a couple of weeks later and you can't just declare breaks all the time.
 
Firaaz said:
If you think that it is only the unvaccinated people catching and spreading the virus, you are massively mistaken.

It is not only the unvaccinated passing the virus on to the vaccinated. There is infection and transmission between vaccinated people as well.

Look at Gibraltar. The vaccination rate is 140%. That means everyone has been double jabbed and a portion has had the booster. Yet it is experiencing high numbers of Covid cases. Similarly, Waterford in Ireland is one of the highest vaccinated places in Europe. But currently has 1 in 100 people with Covid, which is one of the highest in the world at the moment.

A lot of people need to get educated and learn that it is not simply a disease of the unvaccinated and that being vaccinated does not mean you cannot get the disease, become ill from it or pass it on to other vaccinated and unvaccinated people alike.
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I definitely didn’t say that. But of the vaccinated catching the illness, 99.997% do not die, and a similarity overwhelming number 97%+ do not even get severely ill, or require significant medical treatment. Among the vaccinated infections therefore are reduced to somewhere between completely benign and a bad case of the flu. The severe cases requiring hospitalisation and carrying a risk of death are almost exclusively confined to those that remain unvaccinated or have had only one of the two shots.

It is the burden on hospitals and the risk of death that ensure this persists as a threat to society. If everyone was vaccinated this pandemic would be a virtual non issue. There have been no severe cases of COVID-19 amongst the vaccinated from the omicron variant. It is also worthy noting that vaccination significantly reduces the likelihood of catching and passing on the virus in the first place.

We continue to manage this disaster from a health and economic perspective because of the ignorant who refuse or are too lazy to be vaccinated.
 
simonhch said:
We continue to manage this disaster from a health and economic perspective because of the ignorant who refuse or are too lazy to be vaccinated.
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The most infuriating thing is they twist it to "our compliance" prolonging this.
 
Take a break for 2-3 weeks, mandate clubs to get their players vaxxed and restart with tight protocols and open up slowly from there. Simple but won't happen, they'll find a way for it to get worse first before doing anything.
 
therealtboy said:
Take a break for 2-3 weeks, mandate clubs to get their players vaxxed and restart with tight protocols and open up slowly from there. Simple but won't happen, they'll find a way for it to get worse first before doing anything.
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If players haven’t had any vaccinations, they’re months away from being able to have protection from this new variant. There’s a wait if about 2 months from the first dose to second and then 3 months for the third.
 
Offside said:
If players haven’t had any vaccinations, they’re months away from being able to have protection from this new variant. There’s a wait if about 2 months from the first dose to second and then 3 months for the third.
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The vax isn't just for the short term, it's long term too. You have to get the first jab at least, so let's start with that. Can't keep delaying the inevitable.
 
noodlehair said:
If the number of footballers getting covid and being unable to work was reflective of the whole country, we'd be in automatic lockdown as so many people would be self isolating nearly every shop and venue would have to close. Nearly every school would be closed, etc.

I make Klopp completely right and not sure what the excuse is for footballers or why they seem so specifically affected by it. Considering also that footballers across the rest of Europe have not had this issue at all.

Either there's an astonishingly high percentage of PL players who are anti vax idiots as compared to the general public, or clubs and players are using the situation dishonestly. The only other explanation is there's some variant of covid that specifically only targets professional footballers based in England.
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Read today that apparently La Liga has players double jabbed at over 95% so fair play to them, message certainly got across in that league and a few others in europe.

I think before long some top level clubs here will go down the Bayern/Kimmich route.
 
FootballHQ said:
Read today that apparently La Liga has players double jabbed at over 95% so fair play to them, message certainly got across in that league and a few others in europe.

I think before long some top level clubs here will go down the Bayern/Kimmich route.
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Apparently every major league in Europe has players/staff vaccinated at 90%+

PL a huge outlier with a pathetic 63%. And paying the price. Fecking idiots, one and all (Klopp an honourable exception).
 
Firaaz said:
If you think that it is only the unvaccinated people catching and spreading the virus, you are massively mistaken.

It is not only the unvaccinated passing the virus on to the vaccinated. There is infection and transmission between vaccinated people as well.

Look at Gibraltar. The vaccination rate is 140%. That means everyone has been double jabbed and a portion has had the booster. Yet it is experiencing high numbers of Covid cases. Similarly, Waterford in Ireland is one of the highest vaccinated places in Europe. But currently has 1 in 100 people with Covid, which is one of the highest in the world at the moment.

A lot of people need to get educated and learn that it is not simply a disease of the unvaccinated and that being vaccinated does not mean you cannot get the disease, become ill from it or pass it on to other vaccinated and unvaccinated people alike.
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Last sentence is nonsense. Vaccinated people are less likely to catch/transmit covid and a lot less likely to get severely ill.

You seem to be confusing partial protection with no protection. That’s an important distinction and ironic as hell in a post where you tell other people to “get educated”.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Last sentence is nonsense. Vaccinated people are less likely to catch/transmit covid and a lot less likely to get severely ill.

You seem to be confusing partial protection with no protection. That’s an important distinction and ironic as hell in a post where you tell other people to “get educated”.
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Ironically it’s usually the same people who say a vast majority of doctors and experts are wrong.
 
Firaaz said:
If you think that it is only the unvaccinated people catching and spreading the virus, you are massively mistaken.

It is not only the unvaccinated passing the virus on to the vaccinated. There is infection and transmission between vaccinated people as well.

Look at Gibraltar. The vaccination rate is 140%. That means everyone has been double jabbed and a portion has had the booster. Yet it is experiencing high numbers of Covid cases. Similarly, Waterford in Ireland is one of the highest vaccinated places in Europe. But currently has 1 in 100 people with Covid, which is one of the highest in the world at the moment.

A lot of people need to get educated and learn that it is not simply a disease of the unvaccinated and that being vaccinated does not mean you cannot get the disease, become ill from it or pass it on to other vaccinated and unvaccinated people alike.
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Id say the frustration can still stand. It’s not cases alone that will put us back into a lockdown but the severity of those cases. Symptoms will be more severe in the unvaccinated, and the more severe your symptoms the more likely you are to spread it as well.
 
Firaaz said:
If you think that it is only the unvaccinated people catching and spreading the virus, you are massively mistaken.

It is not only the unvaccinated passing the virus on to the vaccinated. There is infection and transmission between vaccinated people as well.

Look at Gibraltar. The vaccination rate is 140%. That means everyone has been double jabbed and a portion has had the booster. Yet it is experiencing high numbers of Covid cases. Similarly, Waterford in Ireland is one of the highest vaccinated places in Europe. But currently has 1 in 100 people with Covid, which is one of the highest in the world at the moment.

A lot of people need to get educated and learn that it is not simply a disease of the unvaccinated and that being vaccinated does not mean you cannot get the disease, become ill from it or pass it on to other vaccinated and unvaccinated people alike.
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This is all true. However, you can still be frustrated at unvaccinated players given that they have to isolate when their teammates test positive, which I imagine is one of the reasons so many games are getting called off.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Random question. What’s happening in the other divisions? Are they having as many cancelled games?
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5/10 of tomorrow’s Championship games are off. 6/12 of tomorrow’s League One games are off. 8/12 of tomorrow’s League Two games are off.
 
Firaaz said:
If you think that it is only the unvaccinated people catching and spreading the virus, you are massively mistaken.

It is not only the unvaccinated passing the virus on to the vaccinated. There is infection and transmission between vaccinated people as well.

Look at Gibraltar. The vaccination rate is 140%. That means everyone has been double jabbed and a portion has had the booster. Yet it is experiencing high numbers of Covid cases. Similarly, Waterford in Ireland is one of the highest vaccinated places in Europe. But currently has 1 in 100 people with Covid, which is one of the highest in the world at the moment.

A lot of people need to get educated and learn that it is not simply a disease of the unvaccinated and that being vaccinated does not mean you cannot get the disease, become ill from it or pass it on to other vaccinated and unvaccinated people alike.
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But infection and transmission is far far less when vaxxed. Get the booster and you get extremely good protection even against Omicron.

Not everyone who wears a seatbelt and has airbags survives a car crash but it is still a very good idea to have/wear them.
 
Offside said:
This is all true. However, you can still be frustrated at unvaccinated players given that they have to isolate when their teammates test positive, which I imagine is one of the reasons so many games are getting called off.
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Exactly. Can the rules not be changed so that only players with positive tests have to self isolate? If it’s agreed that being vaxxed doestnt really make you much less likely to spread it. And the people not getting vaxxed obviously aren’t bothered by the side effects. So why should they have to isolate just because they haven’t been vaxxed?
 
Kaos said:
He did mention that his entire squad are vaccinated, so perhaps thats why he feels a bit more at ease with his own club's situation going into this gauntlet.
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The NHL is 100% double vaccinated (apart from one player), but it hasn't stopped Covid spreading through teams and games being cancelled.
 
horsechoker said:
Darts players are the pinnacle of human fitness. Apparently Cristiano tried to play Phil The Power Taylor and he was on his arse after one round.
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I`m watching it now and the Ally Pally is packed , the crowd proper buzzin. You would think all the perfect ingredients for super spreading, far more so than football, doesn`t make sense really.
 
So with the sudden increase can we assume this is almost all omricons doing, and given players are tested much more than the average healthy person, is maybe a good indication of the percentage on the real numbers getting in the UK just now.
 
alexthelion said:
The NHL is 100% double vaccinated (apart from one player), but it hasn't stopped Covid spreading through teams and games being cancelled.
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America has lost control of Omicron though.

2 jabs are not enough, hence a lot of players catching it now.
 
C'est Moi Cantona said:
So with the sudden increase can we assume this is almost all omricons doing, and given players are tested much more than the average healthy person, is maybe a good indication of the percentage on the real numbers getting in the UK just now.
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Yes and yes.

Won’t be evenly distributed throughout the UK though. That will take another week or two.
 
La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A = 95% double vaxxed.

Premier League = 68%.

Must be something in the water. Fecking idiots.
 
PoTMS said:
La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A = 95% double vaxxed.

Premier League = 68%.

Must be something in the water. Fecking idiots.
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As someone who developed a severe ear problem requiring two surgeries from a Pfizer Vaccination I can understand. I am just unlucky and would have been 100% pro vaccination before this. The side effect figures from vaccinations are staggering. Don't get any public focus though as the masses WILL benefit from vaccination and Government needs vaccinations. I still agree mass vaccination is the best way forward despite my problems. Some will die from vaccines, over 200 in UK alone have died from vaccine complications. Particularly coronary related. These MRNA vaccines have been in development for 20+ years yet could never get through because of 'side effects'. They had to bew rushed through to deal with pandemic. There is more to vaccines than a simple jab and forget for some people. Footballers are entitled to balance risk/reward. Most footballers will not contract severe COVID because they are physical specimens.
 
clonsolar said:
As someone who developed a severe ear problem requiring two surgeries from a Pfizer Vaccination I can understand. I am just unlucky and would have been 100% pro vaccination before this. The side effect figures from vaccinations are staggering. Don't get any public focus though as the masses WILL benefit from vaccination and Government needs vaccinations. I still agree mass vaccination is the best way forward despite my problems. Some will die from vaccines, over 200 in UK alone have died from vaccine complications. Particularly coronary related. These MRNA vaccines have been in development for 20+ years yet could never get through because of 'side effects'. They had to bew rushed through to deal with pandemic. There is more to vaccines than a simple jab and forget for some people. Footballers are entitled to balance risk/reward. Most footballers will not contract severe COVID because they are physical specimens.
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Their odds of taking severe harm from Covid are much higher than from the vaccines though...that is how you balance the risk/reward.

And the majority of deaths from vaccines have been from the non-mRNA vaccines as well so let's not use that misleading stat.
 
Wibble said:
But infection and transmission is far far less when vaxxed. Get the booster and you get extremely good protection even against Omicron.

Not everyone who wears a seatbelt and has airbags survives a car crash but it is still a very good idea to have/wear them.
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“Far far less” for omicron? What % reduction in transmission does it lead to?
 
clonsolar said:
As someone who developed a severe ear problem requiring two surgeries from a Pfizer Vaccination I can understand. I am just unlucky and would have been 100% pro vaccination before this. The side effect figures from vaccinations are staggering. Don't get any public focus though as the masses WILL benefit from vaccination and Government needs vaccinations. I still agree mass vaccination is the best way forward despite my problems. Some will die from vaccines, over 200 in UK alone have died from vaccine complications. Particularly coronary related. These MRNA vaccines have been in development for 20+ years yet could never get through because of 'side effects'. They had to bew rushed through to deal with pandemic. There is more to vaccines than a simple jab and forget for some people. Footballers are entitled to balance risk/reward. Most footballers will not contract severe COVID because they are physical specimens.
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where does the 200 figure come from?
 
clonsolar said:
As someone who developed a severe ear problem requiring two surgeries from a Pfizer Vaccination I can understand. I am just unlucky and would have been 100% pro vaccination before this. The side effect figures from vaccinations are staggering. Don't get any public focus though as the masses WILL benefit from vaccination and Government needs vaccinations. I still agree mass vaccination is the best way forward despite my problems. Some will die from vaccines, over 200 in UK alone have died from vaccine complications. Particularly coronary related. These MRNA vaccines have been in development for 20+ years yet could never get through because of 'side effects'. They had to bew rushed through to deal with pandemic. There is more to vaccines than a simple jab and forget for some people. Footballers are entitled to balance risk/reward. Most footballers will not contract severe COVID because they are physical specimens.
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You mustn't have understood the concept of vaccines and side effects if you were 100% pro vaccination, and now aren't?
 
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