Coronavirus outbreaks among hot spot sports teams ‘to be expected,’ public health experts say
Major League Baseball probably won’t spark a coronavirus resurgence in Massachusetts, but public health experts said it’s time to reevaluate whether the Red Sox should be playing against teams from regions where the virus is flaring.
“We are in a once-in-a-century pandemic, so we can’t expect it to be business as usual,” said Dr. Todd Ellerin, director of infectious diseases at South Shore Health. “To expect that sports weren’t going to be derailed … it’s not surprising at all.”
Outbreaks like the one confronting the Miami Marlins “are to be expected,” Ellerin said. The Marlins’ season is temporarily on pause and the team remains quarantined in Philadelphia after 15 players and staff tested positive for the novel coronavirus.
MLB has canceled the Marlins’ upcoming games for the next week, but Ellerin said the outbreak raises concerns about the potential for players to spread the highly infectious virus to each other, other teams and potentially to people back home.
“I think it’s a major problem. I don’t see how sports teams can really function in places that are hot spots or hot zones,” Ellerin said.
The Red Sox will be in New York and then Toronto, but head to Tampa to play against the Rays on Aug. 10. Team manager Ron Roenicke said they would approach travel to Florida, which is seeing record levels of transmission, “a little bit differently and a little more cautious.”
MLB has released a strict set of coronavirus guidelines for teams. Baseball players and support staff who travel with them are tested every two days. If their results are negative, they would not have to quarantine under Gov. Charlie Baker’s latest order that imposes strict regulations on anyone who travels into the state from a high-risk region.
Dr. Davidson Hamer, BU professor of global health and medicine, said when it comes to baseball, “the risk of transmission is low.”
“You have to balance between the risk and the benefits,” Hamer said.
At this point, Zineb Curran of the Red Sox said the team is not ready to change plans. She said players and the organization “believe in the effectiveness of the safety measures we currently have in place.”
Roenicke echoed that sentiment saying, “We think it’s important to have baseball. We think it’s important to the country that basically has been in a panic mood for quite a while, we think it’s good for the country to play.” But, he added, not at any added risk.
But Ellerin said he’d rather see the state err on the side of caution.
“Right now it would be safer to see a Boston-New York rivalry. That would be safer,” he said.
Jason Mastrodonato contributed to this report.
from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/2X1nSYo
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