Experts weigh in on return of sports

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 15/05/2020 (2228 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Are we there yet?

Like a curious child in the back seat of the car during a long family road trip, sports fans are likely feeling similar angst these days. There’s been plenty of chatter about return-to-play scenarios by North American professional leagues, but little in the way of details about how this would actually work in a COVID-19 world.

To quote Free Press sports editor Steve Lyons from his daily Flight Club bulletin to readers earlier this week: “Never mind when. Let’s hear how.”

The NHL, NBA and MLB owe it to their paying customers to lift the veil of secrecy. Until they do, they’re doing nothing more than selling false hope.

It’s now been 65 days since hockey and basketball seasons came to a screeching halt, and 51 days since MLB’s opening day was indefinitely delayed. How much longer?

I suspect many people can relate to the impatient pint-sized traveller who won’t stop grilling his parents about the seemingly never-ending journey. And so I went looking for answers, tracking down three of Canada’s foremost experts on infectious disease to get a sense of whether all this talk will ultimately lead to action.

Dr. Gerald Evans (Queen’s University), Dr. Isaac Bogoch (Toronto General Hospital) and Dr. Craig Jenne (University of Calgary) shared insight and analysis of the road ahead — from getting your favourite games back on track during a pandemic to obstacles that could quickly send this whole thing veering dangerously off course.

You might want to buckle up.

1. Could sports really come back this summer?

BOGOCH: There’s going to be no one-size-fits-all solution to this. But I feel there’s ways they can go ahead and do this and lower the risk. But we have to be realistic; in the course of a pandemic there’s always going to be risk. If the public health authorities feel you can’t do this safely, then the conversation ends there.

2. Would they have to occur in a so-called biodome, where everyone is locked down and kept away from loved ones, potentially for months.

JENNE: Is that truly practical? Would you get player buy-in? The cynical public may say we pay them enough, they should be willing to do that.

3. Since many players have balked publicly at the idea, let’s assume that’s a non-starter. Still possible?

EVANS: Only with lots of testing of teams and support staff and the use of consistent infection control measures such as handwashing and some consistency to maintaining physical distancing. Easier to do in baseball, soccer and hockey but much harder in football and basketball.

BOGOCH: Players will have to say to themselves, ‘OK, here’s the risks, here’s the benefits, and am I prepared to do this?’ People can make data-driven, evidence-driven and value-driven decisions. I’m sure most players will be fine doing it, but there will probably be some that aren’t. And that’s perfectly acceptable. You can look at that gaps that exist and strategies to mitigate those gaps. You can definitely create a scenario where this can be done in a very low-risk setting.

4. What about spitting in baseball and after-whistle scrums in hockey?

JENNE: You would have to see some temporary rule changes on some of those things, like spitting. I can’t imagine any of the players or the players’ union accepting (full face shields). A scrum after the whistle is probably not going to elevate that that much. A cotton mask on the bench is going to do absolutely nothing for the coach. Anything short of the biodome model is not 100 per cent protection.

5. Testing would obviously be important. How would that work?

BOGOCH: To do this you need to have not only buy-in from the public health authorities, but the communities around. Are these players going to get preferential treatment other members of the community around them aren’t able to access? It’s not ethical to draw resources away from the community you’re working in. In a perfect world, you wouldn’t just meet the capacity the local community is getting, but you’d exceed that capacity.

JENNE: You would probably have to be tested every day, or every second day. You’d have to see the league buy their own testing equipment and hire their own lab. It’s potentially a huge opportunity. They could offer free tests locally as well. That’s a huge PR win, and they have the money to do it.

6. What happens if one player, or more, test positive? Is it game over?

EVANS: Without question.

BOGOCH: I don’t think that’s the case. I really don’t, if people can be rapidly identified and then you decrease measures of transmission within that setting. There’s a lot of different stopgaps and safeguards that can be put in place.

JENNE: You gotta lock down. You gotta isolate those individuals and immediately trace. But if you’re testing everyone on a daily basis you’d probably have that data already. I think any team would be willing to lock down a few players for 10 days or two weeks if it means the league happened.

7. Does it matter that pro athletes aren’t considered high-risk?

BOGOCH: People in their twenties and thirties, which would essentially be the majority of these pro athletes, with few to no underlying medical conditions, in general do very well. And it would be expected if those individuals had an infection, the vast majority would have a very mild course of infection.

JENNE: The individual on the ice or on the field may not be at risk of severe COVID or death, but the 72-year-old manager? The optics would be horrific.

8. When might fans be allowed back?

EVANS: This will not happen until we have an effective vaccine. The size of crowds attending professional sports would immediately lead to a resurgence of infections in the community. This has been well modelled in the US. Summer 2021 at the earliest.

BOGOCH: I think we can have malleability in our policy. I can see even in a pre-vaccine era, if certain conditions are met, and if you can safely design an arena to house some fraction of the seats, and if you can provide a safe environment for the employees and the fans and the players, then I can see some fans in the stands at some point. But I think the bar would be set very high to provide safety to everyone in that facility.

JENNE: We’ll talk in 2021. I just don’t see it happening (this year). I’m very optimistic we’ll have a working vaccine in the calendar year 2020. It will be enough to mitigate the disease. But it will take us six to nine months to have enough to broadly distribute it. Teams may be able to pay double, pay triple to get their hands on a vaccine and deal with the PR fallout of that, but the fans won’t. I’ve been to a number of sporting events where fans are in no condition to drive home, let alone keep their bodily fluids to themselves.

9. Is a second wave inevitable?

EVANS: There will be subsequent waves without question. We’re at the end of the beginning of the age of COVID-19. This will be an ongoing concern for the next five years, in my view.

BOGOCH: The key is do we have the infrastructure in place to rapidly identify and mitigate it? If everyone does their job, it’s less likely we’ll have one, and if we do have one, it won’t be as big.

JENNE: We’re going to be dealing with this until we have a vaccine. That’s the harsh reality. If we give up on social distancing and loosen the restraints, we’re just as infectable, which means it’s going to come back and start all over again. Odds are this novel coronavirus is with us forever. It’s a new human pathogen, it’s not going away.

10. Is this worth it? Is sports really that important?

EVANS: Not essential but very much a societal need. Professional sports plays an important social role for the public.

BOGOCH: Everyone’s entitled to their opinion and I totally appreciate some people may not feel strongly about opening up. That’s OK. I feel sports are one of many important parts of our culture and community. I think if it’s done in a safe manner acceptable to public health and all the stakeholders, I think it can provide positive psychological benefits to the community. I’m all for it as long as it’s done in a fair and safe manner.

JENNE: By no means can the term essential ever be applied to this. But I think there’s something to be said, some kind of moral victory for some semblance of a return to everyday life. I think that’s important. But that doesn’t trump the fact you don’t want to be killing managers or hockey players or fans or service personnel.

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @mikemcintyrewpg