Von Miller Tests Positive for Covid-19

[Broncofan]

21 hours ago, SkippyX said:

I watched his NFL Network interview.

 

I did everything right and still got it...  yeah, I had 3 dudes come over and workout with me in my home gym...  

 

Who else did they hang out with? Social distancing does not include workouts with your buddies  ( or 10 people parties for a birthday)

It points out the problem with limited testing.   Von owns every single decision he makes -  but focusing on the known cases leads a lot of ppl to make similarly dumb decisions.   “It’s only X cases in our area, the risk is worth that extra once contact”.  Except given what we know about Covid-19 in other countries that test widely without restrictions and a 80+ percent asymptomatic / mildly asymptomatic rate, and the fact that outside of wild hot spots that have had to expand testing, testing is limited to pts sick enough to need hospitalization / confirmed case contacts with high risk exposure, even 4x is likely on the low side.   

The good news in that statement is the ppl missed are likely in very little danger by themselves.   The bad news is that they are also the biggest risk to the system when social distancing isn’t followed.  That’s how Covid-19 keeps spreading and creates such high numbers in hot spots.  And that’s also how eventually it picks off the odd healthy person to get really sick as part of that numbers game.  
 

Von is likely going to be fine long term both health wise and even as a pro athlete.   But his case illustrates why strict social distancing must be followed to work.   The pool cleaner, his teammates working out with him - all could have exposed him.   And the same applies for his brother and his GF.   Von doesn’t get a pass here - it just shows the risk of widening contact outside social distancing recommendations. 

Even if Von “only” had 2-3 contacts outside of his own home (and the home workouts definitely added risk too)  - they multiplied the risk not by the ppl they were in contact with - but the risk of all the ppl those ppl were in contact with.    For all the attention it gets, the odd stranger passing by isn’t likely nearly as risky as prolonged contact > 30 mins - or sharing contact without proper hand hygiene / contact with mucus membranes before hand hygiene (why ball sports like hoops and football are at higher risk). 

Von’s story is a great example of why social distancing has to be applied strictly by everyone to work as a system if we want to avoid ongoing surges.  And why each additional contact doesn’t increase the risk by the number of ppl directly brought in - but those extra ppl’s circle of contact.   And while it wasn’t likely the case with Von given the timing, allowing ppl to congregate too soon (like the DEN Post Malone concert Mar. 16) presents far more risk of disastrous hot spot creation.   It underscores that while we all hope for a 2020 season, I’d suspect at best its TV-only (no fans in-stadium).   And that’s only if widespread and regular universal testing is available to every player / team employee / league official and family. 

Until there’s widespread testing available with stringent contact identification afterwards and complete buy in both for contact tracking / testing & isolation of said contacts / cases - the likelihood of a return to the “old normal” is really low until either an effective vaccine comes, or herd immunity is achieved.   It doesn’t affect Von’s outlook short or long term - but it hopefully shows why the cautious approach with ramping back up again is necessary.