Loved this team. Wanted to see them get the chance to make some noise in the BTT and the NCAAs. Sad that they won't be getting the chance. Not the first time this has happened at the UI. Gene Vance was a high school classmate of my aunt and uncle. IIRC it was his 1943 team (Whiz Kids) that were considered the number 1 team in the nation. That team gave up the chance for a championship and went to fight in WWII. At least our guys won't be dodging bullets this time.
As for Covid-19, this isn't the flu or close to it - asymptomatic transmission, a transmission rate of at least twice as high as the flu, airborne transmission, a mortality rate that could be anywhere from about 1% to 4% or more (SARS was initially thought to have a 2% fatality rate, but was revised up to between 8 and 10 by the time it was done). South Korea has had a large number of young people affected and their rate is lower than what we can reasonably expect. At a 1% mortality rate that means about 1.5 million dead in the US if 40% are affected. Given the CDC's failure to make testing readily available (a huge failure of the American people which I hope was just a matter of incompetence), we have no idea how bad this might be. The State of Ohio came out today and said they are concerned that they may have as many as 100,000 people affected. This is likely a gross overestimate. But by the time broadly available testing is available that number may not be out of line. The number of infected doubles about every 6.1 days. Some mathematical models have the US with 20 million cases by sometime in May. When in May that happens depends of the social distancing steps taken. Hopefully we can reduce that by the extreme steps being taken, and hopefully warm weather will reduce the transmission like it did with SARS.
In Italy where there are more ICU beds per capita than the US, it has already come to rationing of health care in some areas. If you are over 60, you don't get a respirator, just a spot in the hallway of the hospital to live or die. As someone over 60, I find that rather frightening. I have been social distancing for over three weeks now, even though Alaska just found its first confirmed case today.