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Saturday's five canceled or postponed AAC games add to the growing list of NCAA games that have been canceled or postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic in recent days.
According to CBS Sports:
"No. 2 Duke and Loyola and between No. 4 UCLA and North Carolina scheduled for Saturday have been canceled due to Covid-19 issues within the UCLA and Loyola programs, the schools announced Friday.
Duke and UNC found new opponents. The Blue Devils' first scheduled foe, Cleveland State, announced some positive tests results and Loyola was set to step in but some of its players got Covid-19. Now Duke will play in-state rival Elon University.
The Tar Heels will play the Kentucky Wildcats in Las Vegas, who had been scheduled to play Ohio State in the same arena at the CBS Sports Classic.
Two other men's top 25 games have been canceled. No. 16 Seton Hall was to play Iona, but officials said the game cannot be played because of Covid-19 protocols at Seton Hall.
Seton Hall also will forfeit Monday's Big East Conference game against St. John's, the league announced. While the forfeit counts as a conference loss, it does not affect the Pirates (9-1) overall total number of losses.
No. 23 Colorado State canceled its games against Tulsa on Saturday and against No. 6 Alabama on Tuesday because the 10-0 Rams have "Covid-related concerns." The games will not be made up.
In women's basketball, No. 19 Kentucky's game against Morgan State, which has Covid-19 issues, was postponed.
The University of Miami will forfeit Sunday's Atlantic Coast Conference game to No. 15 Duke."
https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/17/sport/gam...index.html
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The reasons why this is happening are that:
- Much like the viruses that cause the common cold, coronaviruses have a tendency to mutate rapidly; thus, many new strains/variants have developed.
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- This tendency for new strains to develop is why a person can get two or three colds in one year, and why efforts to develop vaccines against the common cold have had only limited success.
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- Unfortunately, many people think that recovering from a case of Covid-19 or being vaccinated protects a person from developing Covid-19, but that's not the case.
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- All the Covid vaccines can do is offer some limited (less than 100%) protection against severe forms of Covid-19, which can require hospitalization.
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- For these reasons, the only thing a person can do to avoid getting a potentially life-threatening case of Covid-19 is to get vaccinated (and a booster shot), and wear a mask when we're indoors around other people.
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The research shows that over 240 million Americans (about 70% of all Americans) have been vaccinated.
Yet, on December 17th, for example, there were an average of 124,000 new cases of Covid-19 in the U.S., per day.
Q: Is that better than the situation was a year ago, on December 17, 2020?
A: It's only about ~ 50% better. All these vaccinations and the other precautions have helped. A year ago, the average was about 237,000 new cases per day. All the combined efforts have only cut the number of new cases per day in half.
https://www.google.com/search?q=covid+si...e&ie=UTF-8
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But 124,000 new cases per day is still bad enough to be a major problem. The cancellation or postponement of ball games is only a small facet of the issue.
On average, it's still causing 62,000 people per day to require hospitalization, and it's estimated that over 1,250 Americans per day are still dying from Covid-19.
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