It can be an oxymoron to say “negative headlines” because the truth is that front-page news itself is, more times than not, bad. It’s simply more natural to report about things that are not going well or abnormally adversarial to society.

The reason that the headlines surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic are front and center once again is, truly, because it’s bad news. Numbers are going in the wrong direction in terms of new cases and hospitalizations. For now, the death toll is not following the trend. Typically, though, fatalities lag behind case counts as it takes time for the disease to tragically run its course.

There are reports, however, that a disproportionate amount of the new cases in some of the emerging hot spots involve younger patients, who tend to be less susceptible to the more serious and fatal consequences of the disease. It’s also only natural that in a few months medical professionals may have figured out some modest improvements in how to treat the virus.

In other words, maybe there is some hope that the death toll will not rise to the peak levels it reached when the northeast was the hot spot in the spring. Unfortunately, optimistic takes on the disease generally have failed to materialize.

My own example: a hopeful theory I expounded to that this would be a seasonal virus that struggled to transmit in warmer temperatures, much like the flu. That is obviously not proving to be the case.

As a sports reporter who has covered NC State athletics since August of 2004, the natural question for me, even if it pales in comparison to the bigger picture, is what does this mean for the Wolfpack and collegiate athletics?