So I guess this means the Burnley games off as well then

[Milo]

People can test positive for up to 6 weeks. Long after infection has come and gone symptom wise. Which is why they must have in place an isolation period only rather than a re-swab policy..

Eg earlier in year nursing homes wouldn't take patients back unless they tested negative and hence they sat on my ward for 4-5 weeks awaiting negative swabs. Was silly..

[mrmicawbers]

I would assume a break in football is not far off.Maybe a couple of months stop in games and a resumption thereafter.Once the people  have been vaccinated who are deemed to be vulnerable kicks in no reason why the economy can't get back to some normality. Now the Oxford vaccine has been passed and the stocks are there let's hope people take it up and we can get on with our lives.Mind you a couple of weeks ago people on here saying there was no issues and were not going to take it.

[Beamer]

Hi Arthur,
Fair comments but I don't think that comparing your working environment (without knowing what you do) is probably meaningful. By the nature of the game players are mixing with teammates and opposition players from all over the country without any protection or distancing in a way no standard employer would be allowed to do. The point about testing, clearly not very well made, is that when players test positive in any other occupation, their close contacts are 'track and traced' and made to isolate for a period before being tested and cleared. Testing too soon after doesn't help.
Positive tests are rising significantly in football and away from it, not the fault of the PL but there is now a new environment which their comments do not, to me, seem in keeping with the changed landscape. They have now got into a position where they are having to decide which games will and won't be played - that's surely going to end up with a lot of arguments and dissatisfaction from teams and fans alike.
With so much of the country in tier 4 now it would seem more prudent to call a halt for a relatively short period of time to assess the situation and the options.
I love my football as much as anyone but am struggling with it's relevance at present and can't really believe that it is being continued as some altruistic gesture to help people's mental state but that's a debate for another time.

[Fulham Tup North]

981 people died from it today, and that is before any Christmas mixing is taken into account.

It's going to get messy. Very, very messy.

About 12th Jan I expect..... Christmas mixing, incubation period,  numbers will shoot up unfortunately....
Really need people to realise how serious this is....
Football is important.... but it is not THAT important....
COYW

[Statto]

I am not making light of covid in any way and it's clearly a killer however people who would have died anyway but have covid are in the numbers.  Likely covid bought forward deaths but not necessarily the main reason.   It sounds crude but covid is not the only illness causing these deaths.  Complicated.  Roll on the vaccine and RIP those who we have lost.

Indeed.

The reporting of Covid and its effects has been the greatest, most damaging scandal of my lifetime. Almost every 'factual, stat and metric the government and media refer is misleading and paints a grossly misleading picture. The number of 'deaths with covid' is one example of many.

[AJW48361]

I think QPR in the Cup is up next this could be our winter break.

[ex-Pat]

Think I will get rid of my doctor and  come on here for medical advice.

[Arthur]

Hi Arthur,
Fair comments but I don't think that comparing your working environment (without knowing what you do) is probably meaningful. By the nature of the game players are mixing with teammates and opposition players from all over the country without any protection or distancing in a way no standard employer would be allowed to do. The point about testing, clearly not very well made, is that when players test positive in any other occupation, their close contacts are 'track and traced' and made to isolate for a period before being tested and cleared. Testing too soon after doesn't help.
Positive tests are rising significantly in football and away from it, not the fault of the PL but there is now a new environment which their comments do not, to me, seem in keeping with the changed landscape. They have now got into a position where they are having to decide which games will and won't be played - that's surely going to end up with a lot of arguments and dissatisfaction from teams and fans alike.
With so much of the country in tier 4 now it would seem more prudent to call a halt for a relatively short period of time to assess the situation and the options.
I love my football as much as anyone but am struggling with it's relevance at present and can't really believe that it is being continued as some altruistic gesture to help people's mental state but that's a debate for another time.

Thank you for your reply.

The protocols with regards to footballers self-isolating have been in place for the past six months and, throughout that time, can be seen to have worked well. Postponements are part of the system of safeguarding players. I agree there could come a point where the number of postponements calls into question the efficacy of those protocols. I don't think, however, that three (postponements) is that number.

As matters stands, the number of positive cases among the group of P.L. players and staff is just over 1% - still a small minority. We shall only know whether this heralds the onset of a significant rise when we learn of the numbers in the weeks ahead.

As for the P.L. 'assessing the options', surely this is an ongoing process anyway. And, as part of that process, the suspension of all matches must be one of the options that is constantly under review. There may come a point when a break is necessary to safeguard the players. I do wonder what can be learned, however, from having a 'short period of time to assess the situation and the options' that would make football any different upon its return when it is already evident that the virus will be rife for the foreseeable future.

I can appreciate that you are struggling to see football as relevant. I, on the other hand, am finding that it helps to take my focus away from the depressing and worrying impact of Covid19. And it is this, perhaps, that forms the actual basis of our difference of opinion. For all the reasoned arguments, maybe it all boils down to the fact that I favour football's continuation because I'm still enjoying watching it whereas you, seemingly, are currently less than enthralled.

[Mince n Tatties]

Think I will get rid of my doctor and  come on here for medical advice.

Doctors?
They don't exist anymore,just a receptionist at the end of the phone telling you the doc says take 2 paracetamol and you'll be fine😎

[Arthur]

I would assume a break in football is not far off.Maybe a couple of months stop in games and a resumption thereafter.Once the people  have been vaccinated who are deemed to be vulnerable kicks in no reason why the economy can't get back to some normality. Now the Oxford vaccine has been passed and the stocks are there let's hope people take it up and we can get on with our lives.Mind you a couple of weeks ago people on here saying there was no issues and were not going to take it.

I am inferring you do not think it should be a choice. And yet, at the same time, you acknowledge a reason why it is not essential for everyone to submit to vaccination:

Once the people  have been vaccinated who are deemed to be vulnerable kicks in no reason why the economy can't get back to some normality.

[rebel]

I would assume a break in football is not far off.Maybe a couple of months stop in games and a resumption thereafter.Once the people  have been vaccinated who are deemed to be vulnerable kicks in no reason why the economy can't get back to some normality. Now the Oxford vaccine has been passed and the stocks are there let's hope people take it up and we can get on with our lives.Mind you a couple of weeks ago people on here saying there was no issues and were not going to take it.

The Prem has stated 'they are not considering a break'.

[RoyTund]

No it won't be unless we get more positives, see Newcastle and Citeh etc where they had games off but then played their next. In fact Newcastle are still missing players for it. This was cancelled as it happened 24 hours before a game so ruined our preparation and secondly because of the risk of other as yet unknown players who may have contracted it. We know who will be missing and will have to get on with it.

[H4usuallysitting]

As an observation, it looks like kids are in & out of each others houses, then getting the bus home

[toshes mate]

If footballers were in bubbles like touring cricketers are I could understand how things could be managed but when they go home every day and mix with their families I just don't get why football has carried on at all. Testing is great but only tells you that you have or don't have it. The Premier League say they are still confident that their protocols are robust, all I can say is thank heavens you don't run the NHS. It's hard to see how it can carry on in the new circumstances.

Cricket is much lower risk already being a good weather sport and not one that spans winter and the highest risk of influenza and common cold outbreaks which annually cause excess hospitalisations and deaths (e.g. more than occur at any other times of the year).  This annual period involves the NHS operating at the very brinks of its capacity and unless that capacity can be increased as demanded (Nightingale Hospitals?) there is always going to be a problem.

That is coupled with the conjecture that the SARS-CoV-2 variant (which has been around since late summer or early autumn in most parts of England and elsewhere) is more transmissible although the ONS evidence outside London, the East and South East of England suggests this is not so very likely.  Why the variant is spreading so fast in a locked down London, E and SE England appears to be an unsolved mystery.   A potential testing issue may be the answer.

[Cornishnick]

I'm in the camp of "love my footie but the sterilised version we are getting right now doesn't really do much for me".

The low % infections in PL are an historic measure. Authorities keep making the same mistake, relying too much on historical data instead of getting ahead of this damn virus and taking some proper pre-emptive action. e.g. stopping the international break: Players go away for a few days to play for their country and hey ho! some of them come back infected - ooh what a surprise !  So come on PL, wake up and be a leader instead of a follower!!  (alas I fear the £££'s as stake will always be the master here, health comes a poor second in this game right now)

Happy New Year to all

[Mince n Tatties]

Me thinks mother nature getting her own back,too many folk on the planet,rain forests and others been destroyed for greed.
Oceans polluted to f***....No I'm not crazy🤔

[ScalleysDad]

Think I will get rid of my doctor and  come on here for medical advice.

Post of the day. I think the message will be ramped up now starting with a more robust line on physical distancing replacing the ever so p.c 'social distancing if you don't mind that would be awfully nice of you' stance we currently have. Personally I am going to take up the option of punching the lights out of anybody who tells me this is all a conspiracy, control measure, a bit like flu or indeed that they are immune and don't need a mask. There is an interview with a doctor on five live this morning now a BBC catch up podcast that should be made compulsory listening.

[john dempsey]

Think I will get rid of my doctor and  come on here for medical advice.

Post of the day. I think the message will be ramped up now starting with a more robust line on physical distancing replacing the ever so p.c 'social distancing if you don't mind that would be awfully nice of you' stance we currently have. Personally I am going to take up the option of punching the lights out of anybody who tells me this is all a conspiracy, control measure, a bit like flu or indeed that they are immune and don't need a mask. There is an interview with a doctor on five live this morning now a BBC catch up podcast that should be made compulsory listening.

There will be,in the next generation or so,a  pharmalogical method
of making people love their servitude and producing dictatorship without tears
so to speak producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies
so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them
but will rather enjoy it. (Aldous Huxley)
don't think he threatened to punch anyone either

[mrmicawbers]

I would assume a break in football is not far off.Maybe a couple of months stop in games and a resumption thereafter.Once the people  have been vaccinated who are deemed to be vulnerable kicks in no reason why the economy can't get back to some normality. Now the Oxford vaccine has been passed and the stocks are there let's hope people take it up and we can get on with our lives.Mind you a couple of weeks ago people on here saying there was no issues and were not going to take it.

I am inferring you do not think it should be a choice. And yet, at the same time, you acknowledge a reason why it is not essential for everyone to submit to vaccination:

Once the people  have been vaccinated who are deemed to be vulnerable kicks in no reason why the economy can't get back to some normality.

Suggest you read the vaccine thread.

[ScalleysDad]

Think I will get rid of my doctor and  come on here for medical advice.

Post of the day. I think the message will be ramped up now starting with a more robust line on physical distancing replacing the ever so p.c 'social distancing if you don't mind that would be awfully nice of you' stance we currently have. Personally I am going to take up the option of punching the lights out of anybody who tells me this is all a conspiracy, control measure, a bit like flu or indeed that they are immune and don't need a mask. There is an interview with a doctor on five live this morning now a BBC catch up podcast that should be made compulsory listening.

There will be,in the next generation or so,a  pharmalogical method
of making people love their servitude and producing dictatorship without tears
so to speak producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies
so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them
but will rather enjoy it. (Aldous Huxley)
don't think he threatened to punch anyone either

Not the old Aldous Huxley line... 🥸. Be assured I will always be ready and prepared to punch the lights out of a dictator.
I do get the/your point though.