'Almighty Dollar' More Important To NCAA Than Health, Coach Says

ACROSS AMERICA — Although all major professional and collegiate sports leagues have adapted to the coronavirus era, not all in leadership positions are satisfied with decisions to play the games.

Kim Mulkey, the three-time national championship-winning women's basketball coach at Baylor University in Texas, returned to the sidelines on Saturday after she was out for a few games due to testing positive for the virus in late December.

She has said she's not comfortable coaching as virus cases and deaths continue to surge nationwide, according to The Washington Post and other reports. It's the drive for money, she said, that drives the season to continue.

“The answer is this: The season will continue on. It’s called the almighty dollar,” Mulkey said after her first game back. “The NCAA has to have the almighty dollar from the men’s tournament. The almighty dollar is more important than the health and welfare of me, the players or anybody else."

“One conference does this, one conference does that. The CDC says this. Everybody is confused. I’m confused. I’m uncomfortable coaching," she said.

"I understand, COVID is real. I’ve had it — come talk to me sometime. But I don’t know … all the calls and procedures, that’s gonna go on and make it unusual, uncomfortable for every program. We’re no different at Baylor.”

Read more via The Washington Post

The Latest

As the United States enters a new presidency, the country remains in the midst of a coronavirus pandemic that is now more than 10 months old and a time when a majority do not believe it is under control.

Only a little more than 1 in 10 respondents to a poll conducted by The Washington Post and ABC News said they believe the pandemic is under control as President Donald Trump leaves office and the Joe Biden presidency begins.

Poll numbers show a bipartisan belief that the virus is not under control, but Republicans are much more likely to believe it is. About 1 in 5 Republicans said the pandemic is at least mostly under control as fewer than 1 in 20 Democrats responded that way, The Post reported.

The apparent vote of little confidence comes as the American death toll from the virus topped 400,000 on Tuesday.

“This is just one step on an ominous path of fatalities,” Dr. Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University, told The Associated Press.

After Biden takes office on Wednesday, the focus from some on Capitol Hill will be on passing a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package, according to the AP and other reports.

Janet Yellen, President-elect Joe Biden's choice as Treasury secretary, said during her Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday "more must be done."

“Without further action, we risk a longer, more painful recession now — and long-term scarring of the economy later,” Yellen said.

Democrats voiced support for the Biden proposal while Republicans questioned spending nearly $2 trillion more on top of nearly $3 trillion that Congress passed in various packages last year.

Republicans questioned elements of the Biden proposal such as providing an additional $1,400 stimulus check to individuals earning less than $75,000. They also objected to the inclusion of such long-term Democratic goals as boosting the minimum wage to $15 per hour.

For 10 months, Americans have been told the coronavirus pandemic is "going to get worse before it gets better."

That message was repeated Sunday by Ron Klain, Biden's incoming White House chief of staff. Klain warned that the United States virus death toll could hit 500,000 by the end of February.

“The virus is going to get worse before it gets better,” Klain said while on CNN's "State of the Union."

“People who are contracting the virus today will start to get sick next month, will add to the death toll in late February, even March, so it’s going to take a while to turn this around,” Klain said.

If Klain's grim prediction comes true, it could be much more than a year before American life returns to pre-March 2020 regularity.

Since then, large public gatherings have been canceled, businesses shuttered and school buildings closed.

The largest school districts in the country have taken differing approached to dealing with the pandemic. Public schools in New York City were re-opened in December, but in Los Angeles, officials there have said students will likely need to have a coronavirus vaccination before returning to the classroom.

"No different than students being vaccinated for measles and mumps or tested for tuberculosis before they come on campus," Austin Beutner, head of Los Angeles schools, told U.S. News. "That's the best way we know to keep all on the campus safe."

As schools in other areas have returned for students coming off the winter break, a nationwide teacher shortage continues to be made worse due to the pandemic.

It's actually a teacher shortage, in addition to the virus itself, that has forced the closure of some much smaller districts, according to a recent report from The New York Times.

“It’s just such a ripple effect,” Laura Penman, superintendent of a small district in Indiana, told The Times. Penman's district had to close in November due to one teacher's infection and contact with several colleagues.

Officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have now said a far more contagious variant of the virus could cause yet another wrenching surge of cases and deaths.

The fast-spreading B.1.1.7 variant, which was first identified in Britain, could become the dominant source of infection in the United States by March, the CDC said.

In a study, the CDC called for a doubling down on preventive measures to fight the variant, including increased distribution of vaccines.

More than 12.2 million Americans have received the first dose of a coronavirus vaccine as more than 31 million doses have been given in the United States, CDC numbers show.

However, getting more vaccines to states could prove challenging after those counting on additional doses from a federal reserve have learned that no such reserve exists, according to a Washington Post report.

Newest Numbers

At least 959 deaths and 88,691 new cases of coronavirus were reported in the United States on Tuesday as of 2:45 p.m. ET, according to a Washington Post database. The Post's reporting shows that over the past week, new daily cases fell 15 percent, new daily deaths rose 3.3 percent and COVID-19-related hospitalizations fell 4.5 percent.

Currently, more than 123,848 people are hospitalized with a coronavirus-related illness in the United States, according to the Covid Tracking Project.

As of Tuesday, 45 states and Puerto Rico remained above the positive testing rate recommended by the World Health Organization to safely reopen. Only North Dakota, Vermont, Hawaii, Alaska, Connecticut and the District of Columbia are currently below that rate. To safely reopen, the WHO recommends states remain at 5 percent or lower for at least 14 days.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the United States had reported more than 24.1 million cases and more than 400,000 deaths from COVID-19-related illnesses, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

Stay up to date on the latest coronavirus news via The New York Times or The Washington Post.

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