Hello oh sports-deprived fans. It’s been a tough few weeks as one by one, our entertainment options have been taken away. We are all bored and wondering why we never noticed HGTV or National Geographic before. I know we all love our family time, but 24/7 is more than most of us bargained for. I feel bad for the high school and college seniors: the athletes who missed out on their seasons or playoffs, and the group as a whole as classes shift to virtual as well as probable missed graduations. Sure, they’ll get a diploma and that’s proof of their effort and focus, but it’s not the same. In this country, we have very little pageantry (watch The Crown for comparison) and this is one of those moments we have. All of us have seen the empty shelves, watched restaurants and other businesses close or scale back, and tried to figure out how to manage our own work (assuming all of us still have jobs) differently.
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Yes, things have changed and remarkably quickly. For those who haven’t started taking this seriously I want to explain some mathematical concepts. In Georgia, less than a week ago there were 66 cases, today there are close to 500. Less than a day, the US had 17,500 cases and now more than 21,000. The current growth rate is from 2 sources: 1) more tests are being conducted, so we are finding more, and 2) the virus is spreading quickly. Any chart that you see on the number of cases (here, in Italy or elsewhere) show exponential growth. That means that every x period of time, the cases double. The shorter the x period the quicker the growth. In Economics there is the rule of 72: to determine when an investment will double divide into 72. For example if you have an investment returning 2% annually (which is pretty good these days), it will double in 36 years. Not 50 years because the 2% growth applies to the 2% already growing over and over again. The one-day growth for the US is ~20% which, if consistent and complete, would mean doubling every 3.6 days, which would put us in the over 300,000 range in just a couple of weeks. All of us hope the rate will slow with the social distancing, but with spring breakers returning home, stir-crazy people getting out and taking unnecessary risks, and people not taking the proper precautions when they do have to go out, it is just that…a hope.
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It is not my intent to scare or preach. I just want to make sure that all of us who are counting on college football returning in the fall are doing our best to remain healthy. We are all in this together – with that I encourage you to call your family – especially the elderly, take care to maintain your friends network albeit virtually, and don’t take risks that could inadvertently harm yourself or others. Let’s do what we need to do as a nation – facing near-term isolation and probably long-term economic impact – as a single unit without partisanship.
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That’s it for today – I am working on 2020 season stuff, but not all of the schedules are compete yet. We can discuss that later. Thanks for reading, G
Thanks, Robert!