Photo by Thomas Hawthorne, USA Today
COVID-19: Cal Opponents' Hometown Virus Numbers Are Not Encouraging
While university administrators wrestle with seemingly countless variables in their quest to determine whether it’s safe to play college sports this fall, there are stark COVID-19 numbers that paint a grim picture.
Cal’s football team is scheduled to open its season Aug. 31 — barely seven weeks from now — against UNLV at Las Vegas, where the number of new cases recently increased for 20 consecutive days.
The Bears are slated to play USC on Oct. 10 at the L.A. Memorial Coliseum, located within Los Angeles County, which has had more than 125,000 cases and nearly 3,700 deaths.
And on Nov. 7, Cal will face Arizona State in Maricopa County, one of the nation’s current hotbeds for the virus, which currently is seeing a seven-day average of 2,630 new cases — 18 times as many as Alameda County is reporting.
If these and other games are played, the university will no doubt go to great lengths to keep players and staff healthy. Perhaps charter flights. And quarantined lodging and meals at hotels. Games would almost certainly be played in empty stadiums.
Can any accommodations be enough to assure safety?
Here’s a look at Cal’s 2020 schedule with COVID-19 statistics, including those reported by the New York Times that compare the current seven-day average of new cases in counties across the country with numbers from two weeks ago:
— Aug. 31 at UNLV: Clark County has seen the daily average of new cases rise from 336 to 635 over two weeks, an increase of 89 percent. Wednesday’s total of 496 represented the first daily drop in three weeks. The county’s total number of cases now exceeds 21,000 with a death toll above 470.
— Sept. 5 vs. TCU: The Horned Frogs will make their visit from Fort Worth in Tarrant County, which has seen the seven-day average rise of new cases climb from 339 two weeks ago to 468, a 38-percent increase. The county, with a population of 2 million (slightly bigger than Alameda County), has reported 16,700 total cases with 259 deaths.
— Sept. 12 vs. Cal Poly: The raw numbers are modest, but from two weeks ago to now they have virtually doubled — an average of 15 per day over a one-week period to 29. How excited would the Mustangs be about visiting Alameda County, where we have seen more than 7,400 cases and 146 deaths?
— Sept. 26 vs. Utah: Numbers are climbing in the Beehive State, which has more cases per 1 million (8,533) than California (7,677). In Salt Lake County, the daily cases over a one-week period have inched up from 251 two weeks ago to 276. The sparsely populated (3.2 million) state's death count has quadrupled to more than 200 over the past two months.
— Oct. 3 at Washington State: If the game could be played today, this would seem a pretty safe destination. Whitman County has reported a total of 49 cases with no deaths through four months of the pandemic. Hope things stay safe in the Palouse.
— Oct. 10 at USC: Over the course of four months, Los Angeles County has been ravaged worse than any location in America aside from New York City. The daily average has climbed from 1,946 two weeks ago to 2,439 over the past seven days, a 25 percent increase.
— Oct. 17 vs. Oregon: Two weeks ago, Lane County was showing just 4.1 new cases per day over a one-week period. That number has leaped to 13 per day, an alarming increase of 221 percent. Still modest raw numbers, but a trend headed in the wrong direction.
— Oct. 24 at Oregon State: Benton County, home to Corvallis, has such low numbers that a change of one or two in either direction has a dramatic effect on the percentage increase. Currently, the county is reporting just 2.3 new cases per day, over a one-week period. What will happen to those numbers as college students return to campus?
— Oct. 31 vs. Washington: One of America’s first trouble areas, Seattle and surrounding King County have seen more than 11,000 total cases with 634 deaths. The current trend went from an average of 86 new cases per day two weeks ago to 127, a 48-percent jump.
— Nov. 7 at Arizona State: Two weeks ago, Maricopa County was seeing an average of 1,946 new daily cases. Those were the good old days. Now it’s 2,630, a jump of 35 percent where the numbers already were scary. And then there’s this: the New York Times reported this week that the state of Arizona has more new virus cases per capita than any country in the world.
— Nov. 21 vs. Stanford: Santa Clara county was once the most heavily impacted region of the Bay Area. Alameda County now holds that distinction, but the county that is home to the Cardinal continues to see increases. From two weeks ago until now, daily new cases have risen from 84 to 133, up 58 percent.
— Nov. 27 vs. UCLA: Maybe things will be better in SoCal before the Bruins visit for the regular-season finale. It's certainly worth trying to be optimistic, but at this point it's not easy.
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Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo
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