Sportscaster Paul Finebaum said today that he thinks there is only a 25% chance that there will be a college football season this Fall. This should concern every football fan. I think he is being optimistic, and unless we take the most effective action right now to slow the spread of the virus, there will not be any college football this fall. I believe the way to save the season is for everyone to start wearing masks now.
Even taking the likelihood that masks works out of the debate, using a risk management perspective, we can see that if we look at this as a set of possibilities, there is nothing to lose by wearing masks. See the graph below for a simple illustration of this concept.
Either masks are effective or not, and we have a choice now to make on whether or not to wear masks. If people don’t wear masks, regardless of whether they are effective at preventing the spread of the virus, we are in one of the two red blocks at the bottom, which is no college football. If everyone wears masks now, but they don’t really work there is still no college football. However, if everyone starts wearing masks now, and they work, there is some hope for a college football season (the green block). We have a lot to gain by wearing masks – college football!