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Post by alwaysorange on Jun 2, 2020 5:31:32 GMT -8
If the only public place I ever go to is fred meyers and I contract the virus can I sue fred meyers? I don't think so. The same can be said for any place reser stadium included. If osu required, mandated that I attend a game and I contract it maybe I have a case. But that will never happen. Let those of us that want to attend attend. The others can choose to stay away.
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Post by pitbeavs on Jun 2, 2020 8:57:55 GMT -8
It's easier than you think. Your virus genetic code would be sequenced and compared to others. Contact tracing would identify everyone who was at a location on a given day and time. Get enough data points, randomly sample those, and regress the data. I highly, highly doubt that's the case. Even in that scenario, it doesn't amount to SQUAT (legally). You "doubt" that's the case? So you don't know. Nothing new here. Bye.
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Post by atownbeaver on Jun 2, 2020 9:10:59 GMT -8
GOOD LUCK "proving" where/how you CONTRACTED a virus. Lol It's easier than you think. Your virus genetic code would be sequenced and compared to others. Contact tracing would identify everyone who was at a location on a given day and time. Get enough data points, randomly sample those, and regress the data. ATown can explain the statistics better than I. But ... Sure, Epi 101 class today. In epidemiology, outbreak tracing is based on simple probability and attack rates. It is often as simple as a row and column chart. All the sick individuals are placed in a list, and all the exposures are listed out in columns. you indicate which person had which exposure and sum up the attack rates. The highest one is the presumptive exposure. Simple example using an ever so classic church pot luck: Person Tuna Salad Green Beans Dinner Rolls Chicken Potato Salad Pie
Suzy x x x
Billy x x x x x
Tommy x x x x x
Dick x x x x Jane x x x Steve x x x x x x Attack 4/6 6/6 4/6 4/6 4/6 4/6 Rate And the Green beans take it... This is obvious a super simple example and of course modern software is used where you input exposures and let the computer do the thinking, but this is the underlying logic at it's core. It is just the matrix gets REAL big in large, real world outbreaks. Contract tracing works over time as you build up a larger and larger database of known infected individuals and can do social mapping back to the times and places where a person was. But it falls on it's face when society restrictions break down because there are too many contacts to map, even for computers, and you get competing attack rates. And the contact tracing we hear about in papers is not sophisticated in any way. It doesn't have to be, most people are still respecting restrictions so it doesn't take long to find contact with a known case, if a known case can be found. To be sure, statewide we are nowhere close to the magical thresholds of contract tracing the state is putting forwards as guidelines. That is because people do not have good memories, and they lie. It is pretty tough to map out every single place you have been and every contact you have had in the past 14 days... even harder when there are fewer and fewer things keeping you at home on a given day. And of course, they are hiring an army of barely trained temporary workers to call positive cases, get a history, then input that history into a computer. a sea of opportunity for error. Using the above example, if after a football game, a week later there was a outbreak of COVID, it would be likely it would be presumptively tied to the the football game, as I am sure it would be easy to note all the new cases were at the game. You could even narrow it down to what seats they were in, but unlike today, there would be ample opportunity for all those individuals to have other contracts that could be presumptive as well and disentangling if the football game was causal does get harder. You could make a reasonable case the football game was it, but I am not sure you could ever say it was unquestionably and undeniably the football game to the degree needed to award out thousands to millions in damages. as for sequencing the genetic code of the virus... I mean, yes, you can do that. Would anyone ever do it on any kind of mass scale? no. rapid genome sequencing can be done in a matter of hours, but it takes spectacularly expensive and dedicated equipment to do it. and is expensive. Genetic testing is commonplace these days, particularly in cancer treatment, but those tests are thousands of dollars a pop, and use larger tissue samples. extracting viral DNA for sequencing is even harder. and to be lawsuit informative, you'd have to test every person presumptive linked to Reser, and if you come up with a different sequence, even in one of the people, guess what the defense is going to point to? Long story short, it would be REAL hard to sue for COVID exposure, particularly if the state and the Governor says games with X conditions are allowed. One thing that would be interesting to watch, related to this, is if there are successful lawsuit related to the workplace outbreaks. that may inform the real world danger for OSU in having fans in attendance.
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Post by spudbeaver on Jun 2, 2020 9:16:31 GMT -8
What I don't understand is...and let me preface this with a few things. I'm not very litigious by nature. I don't have education in any legal areas at all. What I don't understand is how any person that would CHOOSE to attend an event---be it sports, music, drama, etc---that the expectation is that they will be around a large group of people, would think that if they contract Covid they could hold said event sponsor as libel. How does that make sense? Other than looking for $, how does it make sense for an attorney to take that case? I guess I'm just not built like others. Let's see...go to a large public place and mingle with others, by choice. In fact, pay for the priviledge to be there, contract Covid and get paid! Just does not seem to make rational sense to me. "I don't have education in any legal areas at all"
Let me assure you that this immediately qualifies you as an expert on this board. Carry on.
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Post by atownbeaver on Jun 2, 2020 9:20:07 GMT -8
It's impossible to keep people 6ft apart at a stadium. What happens with bathrooms shut off 75% of the urinals and toilets? What no yelling, high fiving, can't talk to another fan? How do you walk between rows or down stairs without walking past others? I'm almost to the point sell as many tickets as possible. Buyer beware. It is. but as we are noting in this thread, it is important OSU is providing the infrastructure and guidance for protection. In a lot of ways, it is just like a grocery store. They are putting boxes on the ground, they are putting up signs to tell you to keep your distance. Of course nobody is, but they are doing what they have to do. It still takes the people complying, but what is important is OSU makes it possible to have at least SOME measure of social distancing available. As we are arguing in this thread, risk can never be eliminated. only mitigated. the question is to what degree is OSU require to mitigate and how extensively?
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Post by drunkandstoopidbeav on Jun 2, 2020 9:38:26 GMT -8
It's easier than you think. Your virus genetic code would be sequenced and compared to others. Contact tracing would identify everyone who was at a location on a given day and time. Get enough data points, randomly sample those, and regress the data. ATown can explain the statistics better than I. But ... Sure, Epi 101 class today. In epidemiology, outbreak tracing is based on simple probability and attack rates. It is often as simple as a row and column chart. All the sick individuals are placed in a list, and all the exposures are listed out in columns. you indicate which person had which exposure and sum up the attack rates. The highest one is the presumptive exposure. Simple example using an ever so classic church pot luck: Person Tuna Salad Green Beans Dinner Rolls Chicken Potato Salad Pie
Suzy x x x
Billy x x x x x
Tommy x x x x x
Dick x x x x Jane x x x Steve x x x x x x Attack 4/6 6/6 4/6 4/6 4/6 4/6 Rate And the Green beans take it... This is obvious a super simple example and of course modern software is used where you input exposures and let the computer do the thinking, but this is the underlying logic at it's core. It is just the matrix gets REAL big in large, real world outbreaks. Contract tracing works over time as you build up a larger and larger database of known infected individuals and can do social mapping back to the times and places where a person was. But it falls on it's face when society restrictions break down because there are too many contacts to map, even for computers, and you get competing attack rates. And the contact tracing we hear about in papers is not sophisticated in any way. It doesn't have to be, most people are still respecting restrictions so it doesn't take long to find contact with a known case, if a known case can be found. To be sure, statewide we are nowhere close to the magical thresholds of contract tracing the state is putting forwards as guidelines. That is because people do not have good memories, and they lie. It is pretty tough to map out every single place you have been and every contact you have had in the past 14 days... even harder when there are fewer and fewer things keeping you at home on a given day. And of course, they are hiring an army of barely trained temporary workers to call positive cases, get a history, then input that history into a computer. a sea of opportunity for error. Using the above example, if after a football game, a week later there was a outbreak of COVID, it would be likely it would be presumptively tied to the the football game, as I am sure it would be easy to note all the new cases were at the game. You could even narrow it down to what seats they were in, but unlike today, there would be ample opportunity for all those individuals to have other contracts that could be presumptive as well and disentangling if the football game was causal does get harder. You could make a reasonable case the football game was it, but I am not sure you could ever say it was unquestionably and undeniably the football game to the degree needed to award out thousands to millions in damages. as for sequencing the genetic code of the virus... I mean, yes, you can do that. Would anyone ever do it on any kind of mass scale? no. rapid genome sequencing can be done in a matter of hours, but it takes spectacularly expensive and dedicated equipment to do it. and is expensive. Genetic testing is commonplace these days, particularly in cancer treatment, but those tests are thousands of dollars a pop, and use larger tissue samples. extracting viral DNA for sequencing is even harder. and to be lawsuit informative, you'd have to test every person presumptive linked to Reser, and if you come up with a different sequence, even in one of the people, guess what the defense is going to point to? Long story short, it would be REAL hard to sue for COVID exposure, particularly if the state and the Governor says games with X conditions are allowed. One thing that would be interesting to watch, related to this, is if there are successful lawsuit related to the workplace outbreaks. that may inform the real world danger for OSU in having fans in attendance. Doesn't this kind of assume a huge outbreak? Food poisoning can be fairly easily traced because it likely came from one item at one place. A football game? Let's say 20k show up and a few dozen get sick. Maybe that is above the rate of the general population so you might be able to point a finger at the game... but then, odds are that people who are willing to go to that type of event during a pandemic might more frequently engage in activities or habits that are more likely to expose them to the virus than the general population considering a chunk of the general population will avoid all crowds until there's a vaccine. People who go to the game are probably more likely to also have done other public activites in general, which I'd think could make this tracing a lot more difficult to do. There indeed may be some people who have avoided all outside contact except for during the game, but I'd bet it's few and far between. I would hope "We 'think' we were exposed at the game" would not rise to the level of proof needed for damages.
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Post by atownbeaver on Jun 2, 2020 10:21:21 GMT -8
Doesn't this kind of assume a huge outbreak? Food poisoning can be fairly easily traced because it likely came from one item at one place. A football game? Let's say 20k show up and a few dozen get sick. Maybe that is above the rate of the general population so you might be able to point a finger at the game... but then, odds are that people who are willing to go to that type of event during a pandemic might more frequently engage in activities or habits that are more likely to expose them to the virus than the general population considering a chunk of the general population will avoid all crowds until there's a vaccine. People who go to the game are probably more likely to also have done other public activites in general, which I'd think could make this tracing a lot more difficult to do. There indeed may be some people who have avoided all outside contact except for during the game, but I'd bet it's few and far between. I would hope "We 'think' we were exposed at the game" would not rise to the level of proof needed for damages. Yes. I was only showing the underlying method. it scales in complexity and has nested layers and hierarchies, which computers help find. in an investigation like this, you'd map locations, then within locations contacts. It starts even higher, mapping countries the person was at, then states, then cities, then stores and other places, and when the unit is small enough, you start to look for the who and what within each geography. Spatial analysis in Epi is a field unto itself. But, it is also why it would be hard to definitively prove it was the game, and why I would say it would difficult to sue. the real world informs us of this. There are dozens of examples of corporate poisonings out there. Heavy industrial, heavy metal processing, etc, where something when wrong, and there was an exposure. A cluster of some disease crops up and you can do all the epi analysis under the sun, and you can make a pretty solid case this cancer cluster or this set of poison HAS to be related to the Zinc plant 5 miles up wind... if I spent enough time in my garage digging though boxes I could cite several examples of this we talked about in classes. But these industry's rarely lose lawsuit cases and are rarely held liable because even the best outbreak investigation is not certain. not indisputable, particularly when high dollar lawyers come to the table and they pay money for their own high dollar content experts to testify what could of caused the outbreak. COVID has a varying incubation period of 1 to 14 days in the extreme. a mean of about 5 days. but a potential window of two weeks is a lot of contacts for a person. as I noted you start to introduce a lot of competing contacts that all could be used to establish doubt a person contracted COVID at the game. Yes, common sense does indicate the game would be the most likely, most probable source... but indisputable? well...
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Post by mbabeav on Jun 2, 2020 11:42:49 GMT -8
Can't we just have some football this fall? Please?
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Post by seastape on Jun 2, 2020 15:16:10 GMT -8
What I don't understand is...and let me preface this with a few things. I'm not very litigious by nature. I don't have education in any legal areas at all. What I don't understand is how any person that would CHOOSE to attend an event---be it sports, music, drama, etc---that the expectation is that they will be around a large group of people, would think that if they contract Covid they could hold said event sponsor as libel. How does that make sense? Other than looking for $, how does it make sense for an attorney to take that case? I guess I'm just not built like others. Let's see...go to a large public place and mingle with others, by choice. In fact, pay for the priviledge to be there, contract Covid and get paid! Just does not seem to make rational sense to me. As a criminal defense attorney, I can shed a little light on this, but not like a civil attorney can. For a comparison, if you injure your head and need brain surgery...yeah, the thorassic surgeon knows a lot more about it than the rest of us, but you really do need to go to the brain surgeon. That being said...there are many lawsuits out there in which the plaintiff was able to beat a disclaimer. Often, the theory is one of negligence, which is essentially a failure to provide the standard of care that a reasonable person in a similar situation would provide. IF OSU was negligent in providing reasonably safe conditions at a game, then, disclaimer or no, a lawsuit might --MIGHT--carry the day against OSU. So let's say OSU opened for a football game this fall and a few weeks later a Covid-19 breakout is traced to a concession stand at the game and it is discovered that a food worker showed up to work concessions with a cough and a possible fever. Of course that employee later tested positive for Covid-19. Think to yourself what a reasonable person would do as the sick employee's manager. In light of the Covid-19 issue, I would think that a reasonable manager would at least pull the ill employee out of there and send them home. The rest can be up to the jury...was it reasonable to take the employee's temperature and, since it was only a 97.8, let the employee work? Was it reasonable to send the employee home right away after a 100.5 temperature but still let the employee's concession area stay open even though the employee had touched several things in the area and had first walked in without a mask? Why should anyone besides the manager be liable? Because employers are liable for the negligent acts of employees that are done within the scope of employment. So the lawsuit that would be brought against OSU would name the employee who showed up sick, her manager, the manager's manager, and so all the way up the line to include Scott Barnes and President Ray. And the good Lord help OSU if it can be proven that OSU flat-out ignored most/all medical advice for the game (you know, took the advice of the "it's a hoax" crowd). In such a case, OSU could face a lawsuit with a far worse theory of liability that can provide for punitive damages. Disclaimer/Schmisclaimer, it would be merely a small bump in the lawsuit road before getting to how much the plaintiffs would be paid.
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Post by fishbeav on Jun 2, 2020 15:18:42 GMT -8
What you are missing is the person who contracts the virus at the game and then spreads it to someone else who dies. Lawsuits galore!!!!!!!
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Post by Henry Skrimshander on Jun 2, 2020 16:00:48 GMT -8
The media/political hype makes is sound like a death sentence if you 'get it'.
Well it has been for more than 105,000 Americans at this point.
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Post by spudbeaver on Jun 2, 2020 16:21:32 GMT -8
Back to square one of the discussion. Sigh...
Can't we just talk about the riots, er, protests? Those folks don't seem worried about the virus.
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Post by spudbeaver on Jun 2, 2020 16:25:34 GMT -8
The media/political hype makes is sound like a death sentence if you 'get it'.
Well it has been for more than 105,000 Americans at this point. how many have died in car crashes, of heart attacks, of old age, of the flu? The population of the US is about 3.4 billion. Easy there decimal boy...
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Post by NativeBeav on Jun 2, 2020 16:27:52 GMT -8
The media/political hype makes is sound like a death sentence if you 'get it'.
Well it has been for more than 105,000 Americans at this point. If you believe those numbers - I don't. Neither does Dr. Birx. I know of a case personally where I live, where that person's father died in the hospital recently (March I believe?), he had had Pneumonia something like 9 times in recent years, had other serious health issues, he died - then they tested him for the virus. He tested positive. Gee, how do you think they categorized that death?
Big dollars to the hospital/ nursing home to code a death as Covid. Not buying it (105,000). Nor am I minimizing the pain, suffering or lives disrupted by this disease. Reasonable people can take reasonable precautions, isolate the most vulnerable, and get on with life - including football games. Too afraid to go? Then don't.
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Post by Henry Skrimshander on Jun 2, 2020 16:43:48 GMT -8
Most reputable health-care experts believe the true death toll to be considerably higher. And Dr. Birx lost much of her credibility standing silently by while someone advocated drinking bleach, taking lupus medicine or inserting IV light into their bodies to kill the virus.
People die of many causes. Dying of a heart attack, old age or car crash is something completely different than being killed by a virus you caught simply by attending a party with an infected person (for example) (and 35,000 people per month do not perish in automobile crashes, and the population of the US is about 340 million, not 3.4 billion).
I am getting on with my life. I do take precautions. I might attend a football game this fall, given the opportunity. But I certainly do not discount or attempt to rationalize the staggering toll this virus has taken on our country, as some appear to have.
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