All-Star Covid-19 / Varsity Response

[123jump4!]

What if they held Worlds virtually?

IDK how you’d do it, but I’m sure you could. Film yourself live at your gym. Verify you’re live somehow, probably with a unique question/answer password or something. Let the judges do their thing.

It wouldn’t solve the logistical mess of cancelling, but at least it’d be something.

Yeah but to keep holding practices is irresponsible imo. Kids get very close to each other during stunting etc and if one person is a carrier of the virus, soon the whole team and their families will have it.

 

[Keep_Believing]

Yeah but to keep holding practices is irresponsible imo. Kids get very close to each other during stunting etc and if one person is a carrier of the virus, soon the whole team and their families will have it.

I don't have any answers or good solutions, but most of the big gyms in Texas that I'm aware of are still holding practices. The practices are optional, but bet the majority of kids still go.

 

[Knowcheering]

Yeah but to keep holding practices is irresponsible imo. Kids get very close to each other during stunting etc and if one person is a carrier of the virus, soon the whole team and their families will have it.

Hopefully kids who are sick or showing symptoms will be encouraged to stay home. And hopefully gyms will limit the number of people in the gym at any one time. But I don't see it being healthy to trap kids in their homes for weeks on end with no physical activity. To some extent, we have to keep living. In the grand scheme of things, very few people are coming down with serious cases of this virus. There are far more people dying on a daily basis from other illnesses than this one. We can take precautions and limit travel and large gatherings, but I don't think we should go overboard and make people prisoners in their own homes and cease all forms of activity, at least not at this point in time. I don't see a huge risk in having a team of 15 or 20 healthy kids in a gym practicing, especially if steps are being taken to sanitize the gym.

 

[Atxmom]

My non-expert opinion is that it will take much longer than a few weeks for this to be over. I think all the closing/cancellations will certainly slow down transmission but just like the flu we won’t be able to stop everything. I think rushing to get back to normal and not waiting long enough will be our downfall.

I am most concerned about schools and feel like that it poses the greatest risk to my family personally. I’m also worried about team practices. I’m mainly concerned about situations where people are in very close proximity.

I think I’d be ok with sending my daughter to a tumbling class where things are more spread out or letting her go to gym and work. I only know of 1 gym around here that is closing. Most were already on spring break so no practices anyway.

 

[123jump4!]

Hopefully kids who are sick or showing symptoms will be encouraged to stay home. And hopefully gyms will limit the number of people in the gym at any one time. But I don't see it being healthy to trap kids in their homes for weeks on end with no physical activity. To some extent, we have to keep living. In the grand scheme of things, very few people are coming down with serious cases of this virus. There are far more people dying on a daily basis from other illnesses than this one. We can take precautions and limit travel and large gatherings, but I don't think we should go overboard and make people prisoners in their own homes and cease all forms of activity, at least not at this point in time. I don't see a huge risk in having a team of 15 or 20 healthy kids in a gym practicing, especially if steps are being taken to sanitize the gym.

Read this and you’ll see that it’s not a good idea. People without symptoms are spreading the virus.

Infected people without symptoms might be driving the spread of coronavirus more than we realized - CNN

 

[HeatUniqueJ]

So as far as ICU goes Sweden and Finland have already pulled out :(

 

[Cheermom1979]

Our gym canceled 1 practice.
We are expected to be at practice this week or will have our kids quit for the season (if it continues). Honestly I’m pissed. After paying thousands of dollars a year this is a terrible way to treat your kids in a time like this. I am actually thinking about not returning- I think our gym is handling this so poorly.

I can’t believe that my corporate job has closed all
Offices across the world for 1 month.
Our schools are closed.
All professional sports are canceled.
All town and school sports are canceled, soccer lacrosse, baseball, etc.
But cheer is required. and I’m not panicking. But I know if my office is virtual around the globe (unprecedented occurrence- they are not the remote working type of company) than we should really take this seriously. Reading about Italy and Spain how could you not want to get ahead of this.

 

[CLynn]

I can’t believe that my corporate job has closed all
Offices across the world for 1 month.
Our schools are closed.
All professional sports are canceled.
All town and school sports are canceled, soccer lacrosse, baseball, etc.
But cheer is required.

That is ridiculous. And against everything all the health experts say we should be doing right now.

 

[randomactsofcheer]

Hopefully kids who are sick or showing symptoms will be encouraged to stay home. And hopefully gyms will limit the number of people in the gym at any one time. But I don't see it being healthy to trap kids in their homes for weeks on end with no physical activity. To some extent, we have to keep living. In the grand scheme of things, very few people are coming down with serious cases of this virus. There are far more people dying on a daily basis from other illnesses than this one. We can take precautions and limit travel and large gatherings, but I don't think we should go overboard and make people prisoners in their own homes and cease all forms of activity, at least not at this point in time. I don't see a huge risk in having a team of 15 or 20 healthy kids in a gym practicing, especially if steps are being taken to sanitize the gym.

The outdoors are still open. There are plenty of physical activities both children and adults can participate in while still practicing social distancing. Yes, there are far more people dieing on a daily basis from other illnesses. And that’s the point of limiting contact between family units now. If a massive amount of people all contract COVID-19 at the same time, it would strain our healthcare systems to the point where even more people will start dieing from COVID-19 and other illnesses/accidents/diseases because there just aren’t enough doctors, equipment, and supplies to treat everyone.

My daughter’s gymnastics gym closed their doors yesterday for everyone. And they have elite level kids that are on the national team. If professional and elite athletes are not training, why would anyone else be training in a group environment?

The mega gym where my husband cheers closed their doors on Friday. The only thing allowed are pre-scheduled private lessons. And they are only allowing two lessons to happen in the gym at a time.

Cheer is not more important than my health, my child’s health, my parents’ health, my neighbor’s health, our community’s health, our country’s health, our world’s health.

ETA: I don’t wish to shame anyone for trying to maintain normalcy in their lives in this time of uncertainty. Especially small business owners who need customers walking through their doors in order to not go out of business. But we should also understand the seriousness of this virus. If staying home is option, it should be taken. There are plenty of other ways to remain activity outside of the gym.

 

[BlueCat]

People are making these decisions out to be purely black and white. "Children's lives are more important than xxxxx". At a basic level, no kidding. However, acting like we don't make continuous risk/reward decisions that exist on a spectrum is disingenuous at best.

Russian roulette with a loaded gun would be on the incredibly foolish end of the risk/reward spectrum. Trusting that a plane won't randomly crash in your living room crushing your family is probably on the other. Most other decisions live somewhere in the middle. (Driving with your child in a car seat on the highway where there may be drunk drivers, letting your son play tackle football, only going to church 1 day a week, letting a kid try that full for the first time without a spot, etc.) There are few things won't fit into a quick oversimplified tweet or sentence condemning someone for choosing XXX over health/safety/wellbeing/eternal life/etc. Real life is more complicated and grey than that.

Most businesses can survive a short time, but very few can sustain a shutdown and loss of revenue for very long. We are currently closed, but I try to put myself in the shoes of other businesses that may fail if they completely cease operations. The bigger businesses may have more put aside, but they also have much bigger expenses eating into that "rainy-day fund". If customers aren't paying, there just isn't long-term money to pay employees. That happens more quickly than you would imagine - especially in the cheer gym business. Most businesses' margins are dramatically lower than what Karen-with-her-calculator thinks. That soon means employees with families lose their jobs (and usually health insurance). Massive unemployment and bankruptcies don't do wonders for our health care system or children's lives & wellbeing either.

I understand the desire to shame people for making a different decision than what you would personally make, but I would encourage everyone to try to cut people some slack in this crazy time. We don't know their specific situation and conditions. Part of the difficulty is the uncertainty of it all. If we knew that it could return to normal in 2 weeks, or a month, decisions would be easier. I have talked to many gym owners and we are pretty universally terrified about being closed for more than a couple of weeks and whether their gyms will survive that.

This isn't about any particular post or poster here - I have just seen this all over the place and had to vent.

 

[UCFKnights07]

Disney world and universal are shutting down for 2 weeks if not longer, the cases in florida are only growing by the day.
Ive read pretty much everywhere that its going to get worse before it gets better.
Does it suck for kids sports seasons yes. But public health in my eyes is more important. Just because healthy kids arent suffering doesnt mean that They cant be carriers and pass it onto someone else without ever knowing.
The last thing we should be doing is shuttling a bunch of kids through airports every weekend.
Do I see varsity cancelling worlds, no. But if orlando becomes a hot spot, I feel like it would be grossly irresponsible to hold worlds during such a time.

 

[luv2cheer92]

Disney world and universal are shutting down for 2 weeks if not longer, the cases in florida are only growing by the day.
Ive read pretty much everywhere that its going to get worse before it gets better.
Does it suck for kids sports seasons yes. But public health in my eyes is more important. Just because healthy kids arent suffering doesnt mean that They cant be carriers and pass it onto someone else without ever knowing.
The last thing we should be doing is shuttling a bunch of kids through airports every weekend.
Do I see varsity cancelling worlds, no. But if orlando becomes a hot spot, I feel like it would be grossly irresponsible to hold worlds during such a time.

As of now, USASF released a statement that they plan on going ahead with Worlds for now, but I would be very, very, very surprised if it stays that way. Considering some of the measures Disney has taken yesterday and today, they will likely be closed much longer than 2 weeks. Sources I have heard from within the company (higher ups) have said that they are currently preparing (not necessarily planning at this time) to be closed through April and even into May.

 

[CLynn]

People are making these decisions out to be purely black and white. "Children's lives are more important than xxxxx". At a basic level, no kidding. However, acting like we don't make continuous risk/reward decisions that exist on a spectrum is disingenuous at best.

Russian roulette with a loaded gun would be on the incredibly foolish end of the risk/reward spectrum. Trusting that a plane won't randomly crash in your living room crushing your family is probably on the other. Most other decisions live somewhere in the middle. (Driving with your child in a car seat on the highway where there may be drunk drivers, letting your son play tackle football, only going to church 1 day a week, letting a kid try that full for the first time without a spot, etc.) There are few things won't fit into a quick oversimplified tweet or sentence condemning someone for choosing XXX over health/safety/wellbeing/eternal life/etc. Real life is more complicated and grey than that.

Most businesses can survive a short time, but very few can sustain a shutdown and loss of revenue for very long. We are currently closed, but I try to put myself in the shoes of other businesses that may fail if they completely cease operations. The bigger businesses may have more put aside, but they also have much bigger expenses eating into that "rainy-day fund". If customers aren't paying, there just isn't long-term money to pay employees. That happens more quickly than you would imagine - especially in the cheer gym business. Most businesses' margins are dramatically lower than what Karen-with-her-calculator thinks. That soon means employees with families lose their jobs (and usually health insurance). Massive unemployment and bankruptcies don't do wonders for our health care system or children's lives & wellbeing either.

I understand the desire to shame people for making a different decision than what you would personally make, but I would encourage everyone to try to cut people some slack in this crazy time. We don't know their specific situation and conditions. Part of the difficulty is the uncertainty of it all. If we knew that it could return to normal in 2 weeks, or a month, decisions would be easier. I have talked to many gym owners and we are pretty universally terrified about being closed for more than a couple of weeks and whether their gyms will survive that.

This isn't about any particular post or poster here - I have just seen this all over the place and had to vent.

I respect you enormously, I understand that many businesses both cheer and non cheer related will fail. I will pay my bill regardless if we never practice this month or next. But, when every establishment in my community outside of food and grocery is closed while terrible and horrible I can't justify to my friends, family or myself why my kids still have cheer practice.

 

[luv2cheer92]

ICU Worlds has been postponed. At minimum, I don't see how IASF Worlds will still go on.

 

[BlueCat]

I respect you enormously, I understand that many businesses both cheer and non cheer related will fail. I will pay my bill regardless if we never practice this month or next. But, when every establishment in my community outside of food and grocery is closed while terrible and horrible I can't justify to my friends, family or myself why my kids still have cheer practice.

I understand your point of view completely. It sounds like your gym has gone a different direction than we have/will. I am just trying to give out a different perspective of why someone staying open isn't simply because of greed or with disregard for children's or society's safety. It is just more grey than that.