Coronavirus: Sarries know best!

[CitizenSmiff]

I don't see the problem myself, the RFU told him to stay away based on their own assessment which goes beyond the current public health advice, it's not like he's doing the old football manoeuvre of faking injury to escape international duty. This virus will in time cause a lot of actual real issues in the game, doesn't really help anybody to be creating new ones ourselves.

[Tigerbeat]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/51737567

Sent from camp as a precaution as the environment is 24/7 with England. He is not in self isolation....looks like it has been mis reported!

[teds]

I don't see the problem myself, the RFU told him to stay away based on their own assessment which goes beyond the current public health advice, it's not like he's doing the old football manoeuvre of faking injury to escape international duty. This virus will in time cause a lot of actual real issues in the game, doesn't really help anybody to be creating new ones ourselves.

I don’t think anyone has accused Mako of faking anything. The issue is about what advice has been given and what expertise it has been based on.

I don’t see anyone creating new problems on this thread, just asking for clarification what the facts are.

[teds]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/51737567

Sent from camp as a precaution as the environment is 24/7 with England. He is not in self isolation....looks like it has been mis reported!

The thread started with the fact that Mako clearly wasn’t in self isolation.

My experience includes several years of writing monthly/quarterly press briefings and that makes me very aware that sometimes it feels like newspapers go out of their way to mid-report, so I am with you on that one.

The issue though, is still who is providing the advice and how good is it? It’s still not clear to me.
From a public health angle, it doesn’t really matter who has and hasn’t advised Mako to self isolate, it only really matters whether he should or shouldn’t if you get what I mean.

[Cardiff Tig]

Let's be clear, the issue isn't with the medical advice given and who should be more cautious etc.

The issue here is with using any excuse to knock Sarries whether it's relevant to the salary cap issue or not.

[teds]

Let's be clear, the issue isn't with the medical advice given and who should be more cautious etc.

The issue here is with using any excuse to knock Sarries whether it's relevant to the salary cap issue or not.

As I see it, the issue is clearly with public health, and the disease spreading more quickly and killing more people.

[Tigerbeat]

If he has completed the Government / Health questionnaire, declared he has passed through Hong Kong, shows no symptons and has not been in contact with any confirmed cases the advice is that self isolation is not required.
Sarries have done no wrong but seem to be targetted.
England have made their own decision to keep him away from the England Camp as a precaution.

[teds]

If he has completed the NHS questionnaire, declared he has passed through Hong Kong, shows no symptons and has not been in contact with any confirmed cases the advice is that self isolation is not required.
Sarries have done no wrong but seem to be targetted.
England have made their own decision to keep him away from the England Camp as a precaution.

I agree Sarries appear to be targeted but that’s really not the issue. No really it’s not. Until you can - hopefully only temporarily - put your otherwise admirable sense of fair play to one side, the sooner you will be in a position to focus on what the real issue is here.

Covid-19 is a public health issue. We are already seeing six nations events cancelled/ other sporting matches held in camera, schools being closed and let’s not get to the worst case scenarios. Somehow you are fixating on whether people are being mean to Mako.

Mako has much better ready access to a range of medical professionals than the rest of us. From the little I know he has been advised he would be a risk to his England team mates, but instead of heeding that advice and generalising it to his club team mates, you are telling us he prefers to take decisions based on an online questionnaire aimed at the general public and working on the basis he is showing no symptoms so he is probably alright.

Surely that can’t be a good thing?

[Tigerbeat]

Teds, Mako is working within the current guidelines. England have chosen to exercise the caution of not having him in the camp.
If this was Joe Bloggs returning to the UK then I would expect the same decision, no need to self isolate.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51506729

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus ... the-public

We can agree to disagree and leave it at that.

[teds]

Teds, Mako is working within the current guidelines. England have chosen to exercise the caution of not having him in the camp.
If this was Joe Bloggs returning to the UK then I would expect the same decision, no need to self isolate.
We can agree to disagree and leave it at that.

Tigerbeat, I presume the guidelines you are talking about are these.

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/

They clearly say that you should self-isolate if you are advised to by the online thing OR advised by a medical professional.

Please forgive me for using an uppercase OR and bold but it seems to me you seems you have missed this.
its pretty clear that Rugby England have taken a judgement which presumably is based on a risk assessment by a medical professional that Mako should not be present in their work environment. This would suggest, given the limited information we each have, that Mako has been advised to self isolate on the advice of a medical professional.

Please also pay attention to the fact that these guidelines are outlined for the general public and are not aimed at men who spend hours a day with their faces rubbing against each other in scrummaging practice.

If you don’t want to continue the conversation that’s fine. I have had the opportunity to try to point out the flaws in your arguments and others can judge for themselves whether I have succeeded.

Happy to discuss further here, offline, in person over a pint or coffee or whatever.

[Tiglon]

The guidance is that he doesn't need to self-isolate. Being a rugby player is irrelevant. England want to take a more cautious approach? No problem, but Sarries don't have to do the same.

Cardiff Tig is completely correct, but don't let that stop any of you jumping on the Corona virus media bandwagon and desperately looking for a new angle to criticise Sarries.

Who cares what's right or wrong? Saracens are involved so get your pitchforks out!

[voice of the crumbie]

Who cares what's right or wrong? Saracens are involved so get your pitchforks out!

Can't see anything wrong in that.

[mol2]

Sarries are following the Government advice.

It's England that are not.

Are they being overcautions or was Vunipola not going to feature anyway and this might be a way of subtly avoiding bringing back a weak scrummager particulalry when he hasn't trained properly for some time. (At his best his scrummaging is marginal and to be blunt he's been way off that since prior to the world cup.) If they used the Covid-19 card as a euphamism for dropped, it is not helpful to increase anxiety and panic stirred up by the press.

[BFG]

You can't judge what you don't know and for those with loved ones and underlying illness the risk is very serious and the anxiety is real.
If this thing spreads then carelessness is how it will happen.
I would've thought that having travelled through HKG then symptoms or not it would be most considerate to self isolate for the recommended period.
For the sake of one game of rugby for one player then definitely so, unless they are desperate in which case just say so.

[loretta]

It seems to me that the key piece of information, which none of us have, is whether Mako has been tested and cleared.

Being symptom free doesn't mean that a person is not a carrier, it's also possible that someone is contagious but not showing any symptoms yet. If Mako has not been tested, there is a risk, guidelines or not, if he has been tested and found clear, then no problem.