Enough already.

Anybody else fed up with our state administration not allowing even parents or family members to attend University of Hawaii football games?

I am. I’m disgusted by it. Sick of our inaction and outraged at how our state can’t find a workable resolution.

For over a month, I’ve watched football on Saturdays and Sundays. All I’ve seen are fans, shoulder to shoulder, crammed into stadiums, screaming and probably spraying each other with saliva as they cheered on the home team.

Hawaii? Empty. Nothing. Like collegiate sports doesn’t exist here. Out of sight out of money is how I see it.

What are we waiting for? For UH football to fall into an unrecoverable abyss?

Every football program on the mainland has made it work. Why can’t we? Why are we being left behind?

You want data? I’ll give you some.

I watched Ohio State host Oregon in Columbus, Ohio, on Sept. 11.

The attendance that day was more than 100,000 at the Horseshoe.

What was the 10-day case-count average leading up to the game in Franklin County, which has more than 1.3 million people (2019 metrics) and where Columbus is located?

480 and surging, according to coronavirus.ohio.gov.

Still, they allowed fans and, it seems, with no regrets. In fact, cases fluctuated since the game and are actually lower now, down to a one-day total of 131 cases Saturday.

Ohio’s positivity rate at the time was 15.4, according to Johns Hopkins University. That ranked in the high 30s, among some of the worst of all states.

Hawaii played host to San Jose State on Sept. 18

Parents and family wrote a letter to Gov. David Ige in hopes of attending while following all the protocols and being vaccinated. Request denied.

What was the 10-day case-count average leading up to the game for Oahu county, which has more than 975,000 (not a huge difference from Franklin County)?

374 and decreasing.

Hawaii’s positivity rate at the time was 5.63 (it’s better now), which ranked 13th and right on the cusp of being among the best states that are on or below the 5% positivity rate. (That is the threshold suggested by the World Health Organization for governments to reopen.)

So in comparison:

480 cases there, 374 here.

100,000 fans there, 0 here.

15.4 positivity rate there, 5.63 here.

Let that sink in. That’s as illogical as it gets.

Ohio is just one example. One of the states with among the highest positivity rates is Iowa. The Hawkeyes drew more than 68,000 in their home opener on Sept. 4 despite having a positivity rate of 39.15%. They drew 65,456 against Colorado State on Sept. 25 while seeing the state’s positivity rate climb. Iowa is now ranked the second worst (next to Idaho’s 53.45) at 41.30% and just had 100,000 cases the other day. You see Iowa banning fans or moving forward?

Furthermore, the UH campus is located in an area where vaccination rates are among Oahu’s highest, according to health.hawaii.gov.

While Oahu county’s vaccination average is 55%, Manoa (area code 96822) is vaccinated at between 45.1% and 60%. Manoa and upper Makiki is at 70.1%, Kaimuki/Palolo/Waikiki is at 60.1% to 70.1%. Ala Moana is 70.1%.

Why is this important? That’s because those vaccinated make up 5% or less of those in ICU or on ventilators, according to the Queen’s Health Systems.

Even more statistics show that contracting COVID-19 outdoors is extremely rare in worldwide findings.

According to a New York Times article that sourced many different epidemiologists, transmission of COVID-19 outdoors appears to be lower than 1% and possibly lower than 0.1%

As an example, in a tweet from Monica Gandhi, a San Francisco MD with a master’s in public health), she reported that an analysis of over 232,000 infections in Ireland discovered only one case of COVID-19 in every thousand was traced to outdoor transmission. An even lower percentage was found in a study in China.

Heck, the odds of being killed in a car accident are higher at 1 for every 107.

So why is the state so against allowing 500 vaccinated family members in an open-air 9,000-seat stadium? That’s 5.6% of the capacity, far less than 50% that restaurants were allowed. There are more people at Costco on a weekday.

The families who requested to attend are the ones who are willing to take the risk. They all will be vaccinated. They are willing to follow protocols. Why not let them?

If our state administration is so adamant about overprotecting us, then shut the whole state down. No incoming or outbound flights. (I’ve been in four transcontinental flights since June and in two of those I sat next to strangers.) No driving. Close all restaurants and shopping centers, as well as parks and beaches. Everyone, live in a bubble.

Try that and you might have more than a beach takeover.

By the way, the state’s positivity rate is now under the 5.0 WHO threshold and is one of only 12 states in that range when states can reopen. Hawaii was at 4.65 on Tuesday, 4.39 on Thursday, 4.24 on Friday, 4.23 on Saturday and 4.14 on Sunday. Our cases have dropped from the aforementioned 10-day average of 374 before the San Jose State game to 217 before Saturday’s game against Fresno State.

So, what does our state administration do? Extend the restrictions another two months.

It makes no sense. It’s time to end the madness.

It already has cost UH three of their six home games. The state owes UH some back pay. In a broader scale, it’s costing the well-being and stressing the mental health of our residents.

This administration could very well go down as the one that killed UH Division I football and possibly all UH sports.