Muh Muh Muh My Corona (virus)

UCLA does, more or less. I believe the scandal here was UCLA Medical Center employees not getting them, and that having something to do with how UCLA handles football testing over there in Westwood.

Maybe the Alabama Medical Center is doing better in this regard.

 

I'm with you there.

Not really the Pac-12's fault though. Or UCLA football. Kind of like hunger in the US isn't the fault of people who have four fridges full of food. (Or, if it the fault of those folks, then maybe Hollywood shouldn't be working right now so nurses can get their coronavirus tests.)

 

Well, at least we're not the only ones with confused Coronavirus messaging. Britain is closing down the bars, but apparently pubs can serve as long as the alcohol is served with "a substantial meal". Scotch eggs, a hard or softboiled egg wrapped in sausage and bread crumbs and deep fried, are a staple of pub food... but is it a meal? Opinions vary.


Are Scotch eggs snacks — or meals? As British pubs emerge from coronavirus lockdown, they must decide.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/12/01/scotch-eggs-pubs-britain-coronavirus/

 

Had a proper Scotch egg at a British pub in Montreal, of all places. But I didn't have one when I was in London. Not sure why. Too busy mainlining fish and chips and Indian food.

 

The problem is you are comparing an entire 900,000-person industry to one school and expecting us to be OK with the fact that nurses—risking their lives to treat people with Covid—are do not have the same access to them as football players. If you are going to compare an entire industry then you have to go apples to apples and compare the entire College Football world.

EDIT: Sorry the last line was a bit much and not called for. I deleted it.

 

No, I'm saying whether the football team gets tested or not is irrelevant to the nurses getting tested.

Look. UCLA - the university, not the football team, the university - has administered 71,000 tests since March among students and faculty.

Confirmed cases of COVID-19 among the campus community - COVID-19 resources

*These* are tests UCLA - the school - is responsible for. From this stockpile, there should be enough for nurses. If there isn't, it's UCLA, the school, that's to blame.

UCLA, the school, is not testing the UCLA, the football team. A testing company with a deal with the Pac-12 is. For all intents and purposes, UCLA, the football team, is like the set of a TV show, as it relates to coronavirus testing.

My argument is people blame football as a convenient target because bah football. In this particular case, it's the orange to the UCLA nurses' apples. I know the letters UCLA describe both, but the football team is playing because the Pac-12 wants the football team to play. If the Pac-12 wasn't playing football, its testing partner, Quidel, would not have instead donated the tests to nurses.

 

Why do you think football is such a target for posters?

You would think sports writers would love football.

 

One, if you are going to say buh Hollywood does more tests because they have 900,000 people but UCLA only has 100. You need to compare all of college football if you are comparing all of Hollywood.

Two, no one is saying football players shouldn't be tested. It is just a bad look if nurses don't have the same access to tests. Football teams are going to test with the resources they got as is their right, but it is a bad look and a representation of what we value. We care more about getting sports going than making sure everyone wears a mask. We care more about ribblets than we do making sure people take Covid seriously and have access to tests and have the money to stay home. Optics matter.

The TL;DR version: Test football players, but test nurses too. Can you imagine the PR if they say we are donating PPE to communities in the PAC-12 or we will provide 500 tests for every touchdown scored during this season.

 

Scotch eggs are awesome. Found a stand that serves them at the Minnesota State Fair and stop by every year. Never made them myself but now I'm reminded of that.

To answer the question, I'd vote no.

 

Right. It's bad look if nurses don't have the same access to tests as any person in the world. Including Hollywood actors. Including construction workers. Including Instagram models. Including anyone who isn't a doctor or a nurse. That's why they're getting the vaccine first.

Comparing nurses to football players is random. The only thing connecting the nurses to football players in this case is the letters UCLA, but, as I pointed out, UCLA isn't paying for the football players' tests.

If the argument was, well, the Pac-12 should pay for all the tests at all the university hospitals, well, that'd be a bit of fairy tale. But it'd at least make sense.

 

I would argue that the hospital, as a hospital, has both the purchasing connections and the medical expertise to be administering the needed Covid testing to the hospital staff. UCLA may be at the top of the corporate chain upstream, but the hospital administrator and the executives of the corporate entity over the four hospitals of UCLA Health are responsible. If the JCAHO finds a problem with the hospital, it does not reprimand UCLA but hospital administration.

They know their own staff Covid numbers, and the steps hospitals are taking toward ensuring the safety of their staffs nationwide are hardly a secret. Either they are doing it right, providing sufficient PPE and testing, or they are not.

Not football. Not UCLA. Hospital management is where that buck should be landing.