The sports world is stuck in an unenviable rut.  Right now, sports depends on television, and it's an iffy proposition, betting on TV when people are accustomed to showing up in the flesh to cheer on their favorite teams.

But nobody wants to get sick or die of COVID at a game.  Heart attacks and strokes are acceptable ways to get dead at a football game, but not COVID.

Enough.  A study out of Stanford finds that the odds of you dying of COVID if you're between 50 and 64 are one in 19 million.  We already know that the younger you are, the less likely you'll even notice it if you have COVID.  Besides, nobody important pays attention to all these strictures, anyway.  Nancy parades around maskless (and undistanced) at a beauty salon; Fauci sits unmasked (and undistanced) in a stadium.  Even our beloved president doesn't play along.

It's impossible to take all this stuff seriously anymore.  Besides everything else, the longer we go on, the bossier businesses get.  We were okay with shirt and shoes, but now it's no shirt, no shoes, no mask: no service.  Before long, they'll require — what? combed hair? clean fingernails?

But back to sports.  It's time for a revolutionary approach.  I suggest Business as Usual.  If you don't want to go to a sporting event, don't; if you do, go ahead — at your own risk.  No requirements for masks, but if you want to wear one, wear one.  No food handler requirement for gloves beyond the usual sanitary standards; if you don't want the food that way, don't buy it.  And no social distancing.

Let's just declare the pandemic over — or close enough to over for government work —  and get back to what matters this time of year: prep for the 2021 Super Bowl.