Curious to get your thoughts? Given hoops and baseball are done for the season, we are putting all our collective hopes and cards into the approaching college football season. Is our new media deal already in force or does it start in the Fall of 2020? If so, we should be back on track for Academic year 20/21 for all AAC Members under the new media deal unless CV19 does not clear out as soon as we are thinking. I do wonder if there was a delay to college football starting, how would that impact the AAC media deal?

Sorry about the duplicates!

Thank you for deleting those duplicates!

(03-18-2020 01:54 PM)Pirate1989 Wrote:  Curious to get your thoughts? Given hoops and baseball are done for the season, we are putting all our collective hopes and cards into the approaching college football season. Is our new media deal already in force or does it start in the Fall of 2020? If so, we should be back on track for Academic year 20/21 for all AAC Members under the new media deal unless CV19 does not clear out as soon as we are thinking. I do wonder if there was a delay to college football starting, how would that impact the AAC media deal?

Technically the new Media deal does not start until July 1st 2020 even thought sports start on:

Men and Women Soccer (Mid August)
Football - August 29th - ND vs Navy (Ireland)

Everything should be back to normal by then... I hope.

(03-18-2020 02:52 PM)GoOwls111 Wrote:  

(03-18-2020 01:54 PM)Pirate1989 Wrote:  Curious to get your thoughts? Given hoops and baseball are done for the season, we are putting all our collective hopes and cards into the approaching college football season. Is our new media deal already in force or does it start in the Fall of 2020? If so, we should be back on track for Academic year 20/21 for all AAC Members under the new media deal unless CV19 does not clear out as soon as we are thinking. I do wonder if there was a delay to college football starting, how would that impact the AAC media deal?

Technically the new Media deal does not start until July 1st 2020 even thought sports start on:

Men and Women Soccer (Mid August)
Football - August 29th - ND vs Navy (Ireland)

Everything should be back to normal by then... I hope.

Makes sense. ECU also plays Marshall the 29th to commemorate the players who died in the Plane crash. Will be front and center on ESPN.

ESPiN can KMA if the Coronavirus is allowed to affect the AAC contract, emotionally speaking.

I would think conf & ESPN would have insurance

(03-18-2020 03:21 PM)Blackbeard89 Wrote:  

(03-18-2020 02:52 PM)GoOwls111 Wrote:  

(03-18-2020 01:54 PM)Pirate1989 Wrote:  Curious to get your thoughts? Given hoops and baseball are done for the season, we are putting all our collective hopes and cards into the approaching college football season. Is our new media deal already in force or does it start in the Fall of 2020? If so, we should be back on track for Academic year 20/21 for all AAC Members under the new media deal unless CV19 does not clear out as soon as we are thinking. I do wonder if there was a delay to college football starting, how would that impact the AAC media deal?

Technically the new Media deal does not start until July 1st 2020 even thought sports start on:

Men and Women Soccer (Mid August)
Football - August 29th - ND vs Navy (Ireland)

Everything should be back to normal by then... I hope.

Makes sense. ECU also plays Marshall the 29th to commemorate the players who died in the Plane crash. Will be front and center on ESPN.

Hope ECU wins that one. Would be a nice opponent to pick up a W against to start the season, especially considering the history the 2 teams have as conference mates.

Starting to hear the possibility of conference only games (not from AAC folks, other conferences) due to no Spring practices.

Hopefully this ends soon.

There may be some room for hope that the pandemic can be managed well enough for college football in the Fall.

Here is what might be the best-case scenario:

1) Production of the drugs (particularly chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine) that have been found in a number of studies and clinical cases during the pandemic to speed recovery and reduce severity of COVID-19 infection is being ramped up significantly.

2) While formal FDA approval for using these drugs to treat COVID-19 may not be granted until clinical trials are completed (April-May), U.S. physicians are already permitted to write prescriptions for these drugs, and many U.S. patients are currently receiving these treatments under an expansion of the "compassionate care" rule. This is likely to continue and to become more common, since failing to offer such treatment for terminally-ill patients would be widely considered ethically unacceptable.

3) It is likely that there will be increasing pressure for the U.S. to follow the lead of some nations (e.g., Belgium and Japan), which have already approved the widespread use of these drugs to treat the virus, it is possible that there will be enough supply of these medications to treat every moderate-severe case within the next 2-3 months.

4) The combination of the many precautionary measures and increasingly widespread treatment of the virus with drugs such as chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine will cause the following:

(a) The growth curves in other nations, such as China and South Korea suggest that, with appropriate precautions and restrictions, the growth rate of new cases is likely to begin to flatten off over the next few weeks.

(b) There is evidence suggesting that, after leveling off, the number of new cases will be likely to diminish within the next two months, and then to decline considerably, due to ongoing precautions, restrictions, increased testing, and quarantining of new cases.

© Meanwhile, the mortality rate is likely to decline, due to increasingly widespread treatment with the drugs that have been found to promote recovery in several laboratory studies and in clinical case studies during the pandemic (including some U.S. patients who have been treated with good results).

5) Other drugs and vaccines that are currently being tested, with promising data, are being fast-tracked, with Phase 3 (final phase prior to FDA approval) trials currently ongoing for a highly-promising new drug known as remdesivir.

(a) The preliminary results of the Phase 3 trials for remdesivir (as well as ongoing chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine trials) will begin to be disseminated in April.

(b) Other drugs that are already FDA-approved for specific conditions, including anti-viral drugs and cocktails developed to treat HIV/AIDS, other anti-viral drugs, and anti-rheumatoid arthritis drugs are also been investigated for their potential in treating COVID-19. Like chloroquine, they may already be prescribed by physicians as "off-label" prescriptions, which are permitted if the physician views the medication as having the potential to improve the patient's condition.

© It is likely that the same expansions of the "compassionate care" guidelines will be granted to permit treatment of patients who don't respond fully to chloroquine/hydroxy-chloroquine with the other FDA-approved anti-viral drugs.* Based on the available evidence, some physicians may begin to prescribe such medications under the provisions for "off-label" treatment.

6) Individual, family, medical, and government-sanctioned precautions will, no doubt, be continued as needed to restrict the spread of the pandemic. Many Americans will continue social distancing and some other precautions, such as working at home, avoiding group interactions, wearing face masks, frequent cleanings, over the summer, or until the number of new cases diminishes substantially.

(a) Covid-19 testing has already started to ramp up, and will continue to do so. Within the next 4-8 weeks, nearly every American will be able to get tested and most of those who test positive will be likely to self-quarantine. This will further reduce the transmission rate of the disease.

7) As a result of the increasingly aggressive and effective treatments that will become possible as the supplies of these drugs are ramped up, the mortality rate is likely to decrease. At first, the decrease may be gradually, but June or July, it may be possible to bring the mortality rate down to such an extent that 90%-95% of cases with severe infections will have a complete recovery. Even now, 95% to 98% of persons who become infected with covid-19 experience a complete recovery, with most cases ranging in severity from mild to moderate.

8) By mid-August, the following may have been accomplished:

(a) The period of greatest risk for the spread of the virus will have been passed, and the number of new cases may diminish to such an extent that some of the governmental restrictions can be relaxed (workers can return to work, etc., schools can be re-opened in the Fall).

(b) If the drugs that have shown promise in many nations and numerous studies are found to be effective and are widely enough distributed, the main reason for the most extreme precautions and restrictions - high mortality risk - will begin to subside.

© By August, while new cases of covid-19 may continue to be reported, the condition may begin to be regarded the way that influenza is regarded today, as a condition that while a serious risk for the most vulnerable populations (the most elderly and persons with severe illnesses or compromised immunity), can be treated effectively, and will no longer require extreme precautions or restrictions.

(d) While attendance at large events may not approach customary levels in early to mid-September, attendance rates may begin to increase gradually in the following months, especially if effective treatment is made available to all Americans by late August, so that the fear of severe illness or potential mortality is no longer a significant concern.


Summary:

The main thing that has made the covid-19 pandemic fundamentally different from annual influenza is that it is more highly contagious and is associated with a much higher rate of severe, life-threatening illness.

If the production of drugs that have shown significant promise in promoting recovery from covid-19 is ramped up sufficiently, the risk for severe or life-threatening infection may diminish very substantially within the next 3-4 months.

Notably, Bayer Pharmaceuticals has already initiated the donation/shipment of "millions of doses" of chloroquine to the United States. A large number of Americans can already obtain chloroquine prescriptions from their physicians under the provisions for "off-label" prescriptions, and the supplies will be sustained due to rapidly increasing manufacture of these medications in the weeks to come.

It is possible, and perhaps even likely that all Americans will be able to receive effective treatment for the illness by late Summer. At that point, while the illness may not be completely eradicated, the fear of severe or life threatening illness may no longer prevent most Americans from going to work or school, although social distancing, face masks, and other precautions will be likely to continue until widespread vaccination is completed.


.

------------

*There are also ongoing trials on potential covid-19 vaccines. While this may take a year or longer, it is possible that some nations may permit fast-track approval for a vaccine, if found to boost immune response sufficiently. When, or if sanctioned under expedited procedures by the World Health Organization, widespread immunization will help to bring the global pandemic under control, and this will help to reduce risk of transmission to U.S. citizens.

China has reported 0 new case in Wuhan, China. The origin of the virus.

NY Governor believes that the original "Hot Spot" in Westchester County (New Rochelle) has contained the spread within that "Hot Spot"

So there is hope... Despite having 10,356 new confirmed coronavirus cases in New York State: 5,600+ of them here in N.Y.C..

(03-21-2020 10:10 PM)GoOwls111 Wrote:  China has reported 0 new case in Wuhan, China. The origin of the virus.

NY Governor believes that the original "Hot Spot" in Westchester County (New Rochelle) has contained the spread within that "Hot Spot"

So there is hope... Despite having 10,356 new confirmed coronavirus cases in New York State: 5,600+ of them here in N.Y.C..

The numbers from most of Asia, where the virus was spreading for weeks longer, are very encouraging, although China and South Korea have had a couple of days in the past week with 100+ new cases per day, showing they have to remain careful.

Europe and North America are having the most rapid spread this week. One question is whether these two continents will show the same slowing trend that were found in China (80,000 cases at peak) and South Korea (~9000 cases at peak). The U.S. rate of transmission had been encouraging until last Tuesday, but since then the increase in confirmed cases has doubled every two days. This may be due in some small part to increased detection resulting from increased testing.

Since the virus often takes a week or so to incubate, the increases in New York don't yet reflect the preventive measures that most New Yorkers started observing over the past 5-7 days, and are most likely to be reflecting the spread of the disease before the population became aware of the need to take more stringent precautions.

Here is a link to a graph that shows the rates of increase in the number of cases for most countries in the world:

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid...er-million

The graph shows that the pattern in most nations has been an initially rapid rise in the number of cases per million, followed by an asymptotic (gradually leveling off) trend that has typically become apparent 10-20 days after 1 case per million has first been detected. This trend has even begun to be observed in Italy, although the rate of illness is still doubling there more than once every 3 days.

The U.S. has bucked the trend this week, increasing from doubling every 3 days to now doubling every 2 days. However, this may be a temporary "blip," and may soon slow as a result of the restrictions in NY and CA.

We're beginning to see some charts on recovery rates, which suggest that, on average, the number of patients who have recovered from covid-19 has been increasing steadily, generally within 2-3 weeks of contracting the illness.

https://www.ceicdata.com/en/blog/china-r...l-activity

What this suggests is that, if the U.S. pattern is similar to that in China, the large number of affected individuals who recover within 2-3 weeks (many of whom self-quarantine) tends to be largely responsible for the flattening of the curve in the number of cases.

We haven't seen much flattening in the U.S. curve yet, because such a small number of current cases has had the illness for the average expected two week period. However, the trends abroad suggest that the curve may begin to flatten slightly due to recovered cases within the next two weeks, all other things being equal.

Here is a bit more good news about the research on the anti-viral remdesivir, which is currently being tested in a phase 3 clinical trial (passed safety test, phase 3 is to test whether it is effective):

The FDA and Gilead are also granting access to the drug via "compassionate use" programs. Compassionate use is when patients are allowed to get unapproved, experimental medicine outside of clinical trials. The FDA says it has granted this sort of access to remdesivir to about 250 (covid-19) patients already.

As for when the drug might be approved, FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn has indicated that the agency is working closely with Gilead. The agency hopes to make a decision on remdesivir quickly.

Kaitin, from the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development, says today's FDA is better equipped than ever to approve a drug quickly.

"the FDA can work with companies to provide a greased pathway."

The 1987 approval of azidothymidine — AZT — as the first AIDS medicine, was a game-changer for the FDA, he says. The agency approved AZT without waiting for the long clinical trials required in other drug approvals. It did this on condition that the drugmaker, Burroughs Wellcome, would continue to study patients taking the drug, and report the results back to the FDA. That decision by the agency has paved the way for accelerated approval pathways for other drugs.

"The FDA has a lot more in its toolkit for moving important drugs through the process extremely fast," Kaitin says.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/03/21/819099156/might-the-experimental-drug-remdesivir-work-against-covid-19




Also, this:

"The FDA is allowing two drugs to be used for 'compassionate use' to treat the coronavirus. Here's what that means."

"During a Thursday press conference, (the President) said the drugs chloroquine and remdesivir would soon be available to treat people with COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn later clarified Trump's comments, saying the drugs would actually be available ... for "compassionate use."

Compassionate use refers to using a drug when other treatment options aren't available."

https://www.businessinsider.com/chloroqu...ans-2020-3


What this means is that the FDA has shown a willingness to allow the "compassionate use" of experimental drugs or drugs not yet approved for specific conditions if no other treatment is available in some cases, and at least these two drugs are now permitted to be administered with patients who have covid-19 under the "compassionate use" provisions.

The article also states that there have been reports suggesting that "the two drugs help some people recover from COVID-19. Some have described these as "anecdotal reports," which typically refers to case studies or small clinical studies with no control group. However, there have been some small studies with standard treatment control groups that have been supportive of at least one of these drugs, and the evidence has been compelling enough to cause Belgium, Japan, and Israel to begin permitting treatment with one or more of the drugs hoped to promote recovery from covid-19.

The US will most likely have the highest infection rate at the fastest pace once testing is available for all that ask for it. As a Republic (Democracy) we cannot place people under house arrest to slow the infection rate; at the same time I suspect that the US will have the lowest % of mortality rate.

(03-21-2020 10:10 PM)GoOwls111 Wrote:  China has reported 0 new case in Wuhan, China. The origin of the virus.

NY Governor believes that the original "Hot Spot" in Westchester County (New Rochelle) has contained the spread within that "Hot Spot"

So there is hope... Despite having 10,356 new confirmed coronavirus cases in New York State: 5,600+ of them here in N.Y.C..

I believe no news out of China.

(03-22-2020 03:06 AM)GoOwls111 Wrote:  The US will most likely have the highest infection rate at the fastest pace once testing is available for all that ask for it. As a Republic (Democracy) we cannot place people under house arrest to slow the infection rate; at the same time I suspect that the US will have the lowest % of mortality rate.

I agree with your point that we shouldn't put Americans under house arrest to slow the infection rate. When you start to coop people and families up, nerves can fray, and every kind of abuse and domestic violence can easily ensue. Kids need to play outside. Staying indoors all the time can drive a person crazy and drive one to desperation.

Spending a big part of our lives in Philadelphia, walking through the graveyard of Washington Square, and Independence Hall, may have made us particularly aware of the basic freedoms that are so important to us, regardless of party affiliation.

Now, for a news update:

The Chinese government has begun to release some of the details from their clinical trials on chloroquine:

1) "Chloroquine was among the first group of therapies Chinese scientists identified as being effective in curbing the new coronavirus.
Clinical trials on about 130 patients demonstrated the drug’s ability to reduce the severity of the illness and speed up virus clearance, according to China’s Ministry of Sciences and Technology."

2) "Chroloquine phosphate was officially recommended on Feb. 19 in the Covid-19 treatment guidelines published by China’s National Health Commission, along with a few other drugs ... as antiviral treatments for patients." The commission originally recommended a 10-day course, but is now recommending no more than a 7-day course of chloroquine for adult patients at 500mg -- half a gram -- twice a day, so as to reduce the likelihood of adverse side effects.

3) The Chinese researchers have emphasized that the maximum dose (500 mg twice/day) must be scrupulously adhered to, because the toxicity of this drug can cause serious and even potentially fatal health effects if a patient takes twice that amount (i.e., 2,000 mg./day is harmful):

(a) "The drug is known to have short-term side effects such as nausea, diarrhea and tinnitus while long-term use can irreversibly impair eyesight. It’s forbidden for pregnant women as it can cause congenital defects in babies."

(b) "China Health Commission revised the dosage in a Feb. 29 notice tightening chloroquine use. The drug cannot be given to pregnant women, those with heart disease, terminal liver and renal disease, retina and hearing loss and patients on antibiotics such as azithromycin and steroid."

© "It can now be given only to patients between 18 to 65 years of age for a seven-day treatment course. Patients weighing over 50 kilograms (110 pounds) can take 500mg twice a day -- the usual dose -- while those weighing less will be administered the drug just once a day after two days of use, according to the latest guidelines."


https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/...-two-grams


The article also mentioned this:

Chroloquine phosphate was officially recommended on Feb. 19 in the Covid-19 treatment guidelines published by China’s National Health Commission, along with a few other drugs such as AbbVie Inc.’s Kaletra and flu drug arbidol as antiviral treatments for patients.

Note: There are several ongoing studies of Kaletra, the first of which yielded disappointing findings, but the research will continue.

There have been other articles describing current studies of the above anti-virals and another anti-viral , favipiravir.

Here's an abstract of an article describing some of the other compounds that are being examined as potential treatments for covid-19:

Drug treatment options for the 2019-new coronavirus (2019-nCoV)

ArticleinBioscience trends · January 2020with1,181 Reads
DOI: 10.5582/bst.2020.01020
Cite this publication
Hongzhou Lu
Hongzhou Lu
Abstract
As of January 22, 2020, a total of 571 cases of the 2019-new coronavirus (2019-nCoV) have been reported in 25 provinces (districts and cities) in China. At present, there is no (NOTE: no proven effective) vaccine or antiviral treatment for human and animal coronavirus, so that identifying the drug treatment options as soon as possible is critical for the response to the 2019-nCoV outbreak. Three general methods, which include existing broad-spectrum antiviral drugs using standard assays, screening of a chemical library containing many existing compounds or databases, and the redevelopment of new specific drugs based on the genome and biophysical understanding of individual coronaviruses, are used to discover the potential antiviral treatment of human pathogen coronavirus. Lopinavir /Ritonavir, Nucleoside analogues, Neuraminidase inhibitors, Remdesivir, peptide (EK1), abidol, RNA synthesis inhibitors (such as TDF, 3TC), anti-inflammatory drugs (such as hormones and other molecules), Chinese traditional medicine, such ShuFengJieDu Capsules and Lianhuaqingwen Capsule, could be (among) the drug treatment options for 2019-nCoV. However, the efficacy and safety of these drugs for 2019- nCoV still need to be further confirmed by clinical experiments.



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The following abstract illustrates some of the combination treatments that the Chinese researchers have been studying. This is a very small study with no apparent control group, so the beneficial findings may or may not be significant. Just to show you some of the work they've been doing on this:

Biosci Trends. 2020 Mar 16;14(1):64-68. doi: 10.5582/bst.2020.01030. Epub 2020 Feb 9.
Clinical characteristics and therapeutic procedure for four cases with 2019 novel coronavirus pneumonia receiving combined Chinese and Western medicine treatment.
Wang Z1, Chen X2, Lu Y2, Chen F3, Zhang W3.
Author information
Abstract
Pneumonia associated with the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) is continuously and rapidly circulating at present. No effective antiviral treatment has been verified thus far. We report here the clinical characteristics and therapeutic procedure for four patients with mild or severe 2019-nCoV pneumonia admitted to Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center. All the patients were given antiviral treatment including lopinavir/ritonavir (Kaletra), arbidol, and Shufeng Jiedu Capsule (SFJDC, a traditional Chinese medicine) and other necessary support care. After treatment, three patients gained significant improvement in pneumonia associated symptoms, two of whom were confirmed 2019-nCoV negative and discharged, and one of whom was virus negative at the first test. The remaining patient with severe pneumonia had shown signs of improvement by the cutoff date for data collection. Results obtained in the current study may provide clues for treatment of 2019-nCoV pneumonia. The efficacy of antiviral treatment including lopinavir/ritonavir, arbidol, and SFJDC warrants further verification in future study.

This was a very good article in the Orlando Sentinal.
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/coronavi...story.html

(03-23-2020 08:09 AM)WhalerFan Wrote:  This was a very good article in the Orlando Sentinal.
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/coronavi...story.html

Thank you for sharing

Did the MWC get their deal signed before this madness hit?

(03-23-2020 02:31 PM)8BitPirate Wrote:  Did the MWC get their deal signed before this madness hit?

No - See the Realignment Board thread on this subject.