© Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
The NFL is not safe from the coronavirus because its season starts later than the rest of the major sports leagues in the United States. Even if the NFL pursues a science-averse, profit-oriented decision to push ahead with the season, the 49ers won’t be able to participate, at least not at Levi’s Stadium with fans.
They won’t be able to take any risks on participating in a somewhat normal season because Santa Clara County officials, who, due to California state law, have the final say in local health matters, are not optimistic about the season starting on time. On March 8, Santa Clara County chief executive Jeffrey Smith said he doubted that sports would be able to return by Thanksgiving. Smith is a medical doctor and was previously the chief medical officer of Contra Costa County.
Per an ESPN report on Wednesday, Smith said sports returning puts “the entire country at risk” and that allowing sports to resume is a decision to be made by the county’s public health officer, Dr. Sara Cody. That is again, due to a California law which authorizes local health officials to “take any action … necessary to control the spread of the communicable disease,” in order to make economic and public decisions apolitical in nature.
Both the 49ers and San Jose Sharks, who reside in the county, put out statements saying they would abide by the decisions of their local officials.
Cody was also interviewed in the story, saying Smith’s statement was probably accurate.
“I don’t have a crystal ball to know how this pandemic is going to look down the line, but my sense is that we’re in it for the long haul,” Cody said. “The first thing we put in place was banning mass gatherings, and it’s probably the last thing we would resume.”
Smith said starting the NFL season on time would necessitate, “a miracle, like a huge amount of herd immunity that is suddenly found, which is highly unlikely, or an immunization, which is highly unlikely, or a specific treatment, which is highly unlikely.”
On the topic of potentially starting the season without fans, Smith echoed the same sentiments as doctors interviewed in KNBR’s independent reporting on the coronavirus as it pertains to the NFL and MLB seasons, in that testing has limitations, and is only actually effective after the fact.
“The test only tells you what the results are at that particular moment,” Smith said. “And we’re not just talking about the players. There’s all their families, all the groundskeepers and all the support staff and front office staff. So it’s hard for me to imagine they would want to put everybody in 24-hour quarantine for the entire season.”
Dr. Amesh Adalja, M.D., Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security, and member of the NCAA coronavirus panel, told KNBR that the only thing that can provide certainty of safety for a mass gathering event like a concert, movie, or sporting event, is immunity or a vaccine, and that because the coronavirus has up to a 14-day incubation period, someone could test negative and show up positive hours or days later.
In terms of MLB’s plan to have a season located in Arizona or Florida, or the NFL to follow a similar measure, Adalja said even complete isolation of teams (aside from the logistical and ethical challenges of separating players from their families for months at a time), wouldn’t be completely safe.
“There’s no way that they can play this season without risk of coronavirus transmission, unless they only use players that are already immune and don’t have fans, and all of the people that are on the sidelines are also immune,” Adalja said. “So there is going to be some level of risk.”
This was the same sentiment echoed here, in KNBR’s independent reporting on the MLB plan to start its season.
“It depends on how you define ‘feasible,’” said Rand McClain, a regenerative and sports medicine doctor based in Santa Monica, when asked if MLB’s all-around-Arizona plan is feasible. “There’s no 100 percent safe way to [ensure you don’t get the virus] without being locked up. If you’re going to go out there and play baseball, you’re going to assume some risk. Can you reduce the risk to where you feel comfortable?”
“… What are you prepared to do? The first thing you have to decide is where is the line. What’s the amount of risk you’re willing to take?”
As far as Santa Clara is concerned, the decision will come down to Cody. As she intimated, it is likely to be later, rather than sooner, for sports to return there, even without fans.
