By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
The coronavirus pandemic has halted activity in all professional competitions. While league leaders hope that the situation will be safe enough for health officials to allow play to resume at least in September, having no sports at all in the remainder of 2021 isn’t a far-fetched scenario.
According to a story by the Washington Post, there are a couple of reasons that push experts to think that the coronavirus crisis may definitely freeze all action this year. These reasons include the uncertainty that derives from the difficult to predict coronavirus trajectory and also the fact that there will be many other bans to be lifted first before players and fans return to arenas and stadiums.
“Unfortunately, I think perhaps if anything, having large spectator sports open back up may even have to be delayed a little bit longer than relaxing some of the other things,” Stanford infectious-disease doctor Dean Winslow said. “I hate to say that because I’m a big sports fan.”
“There’s also the scenario a lot of people worry about, including my friend Dr. Fauci, that if you relax the control measures too soon, you could potentially induce a second wave of transmission to susceptible people,” Winslow added. “It’s a little too soon to make that prediction. I certainly don’t think it’s impossible that we’ll be able to start resuming things such as sporting events by the early fall”
Winslow added that social distancing and confinement measures may help towards the optimistic case of sports returning in September. “That would potentially give public-health people the incentive to at least consider starting to relax these restrictions,” Winslow said. “That would mean allowing potentially sporting events and concerts and that sort of thing to happen by the early fall.”
Jares Evans, senior research at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory warned people to be ready for something that may disappoint them.
“From my point of view based on data — and I’m a huge sports fan, so this is really hard — I can’t really predict or truly speculate,” Evans said. “We need as a population to be prepared for anything. And also be prepared for that disappointment.”
After all, there are many things to be taken into account and that includes a surety that no one will be affected by COVID-19.
“You want to be confident all the individuals that are participating have either no virus and a very low chance,” Evans added. “This doesn’t make it a short time frame. I’m not saying it’s going to be years. I’m just saying there are going to have to be considerations in place as far as making sure the participants are tested. You have to have an understanding where they were, who they were in contact with.”
In the meantime, the NBA intends to restart once health officials say it’s completely safe to do so. And that may not happen any time soon.