Anxiety ahead of MLS, NBA restarts
Sign up now: Get the biggest sports news in your inbox
Even while Philadelphia's All-Star guard Ben Simmons (in blue) says he's at full strength heading into the restart, NBA commissioner Adam Silver remains concerned a "significant spread" of Covid-19 could burst the league's safety bubble and cause a second shutdown of the season.
PHOTO: AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
LOS ANGELES • Four months after grinding to a halt due to the coronavirus pandemic, major professional sports leagues in North America are taking their first nervous steps back on the road to recovery.
But, as basketball and football gear up for returns this month, they are doing so against a backdrop of anxiety and surging Covid-19 cases across the United States.
Athletes in both sports have expressed deep misgivings about arrangements put in place for their return, and in several cases have opted to skip participating altogether.
The National Basketball Association (NBA), which is set to resume on July 30, and Major League Soccer (MLS) have drawn up plans which will see teams based in a protective "bubble" at Disney World in Orlando, Florida.
But Covid-19 cases have skyrocketed in the state in recent weeks - more than 7,300 new cases were reported on Tuesday and intensive care unit beds at running at near 90 per cent capacity.
A cluster of outbreaks involving two MLS teams already inside the bubble has highlighted the omnipotent threat posed by the virus, even in the face of carefully crafted mitigation measures.
Dallas FC have since withdrawn altogether from the MLS is Back tournament, which kicks off this morning (Singapore time), after 11 players and staff came down with the coronavirus, while Nashville SC has also been rocked by a string of positive tests.
"It's important that the leagues realise that even in a bubble, there is still risk to all players and staff for contracting Covid-19," said Robert Glatter, an emergency physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York.
"It's impossible to completely mitigate the risk, even when players and staff practise social distancing and wear masks."
It is a risk Los Angeles FC's star man and reigning MLS Most Valuable Player Carlos Vela is unwilling to take. The former Arsenal forward said on Monday he would skip the tournament, citing concerns for his family's health as his wife is pregnant.
Dr Zach Binney, an epidemiologist at Oxford College of Emory University, believes the two MLS outbreaks have exposed the single biggest flaw in the bio-sphere models.
"The most difficult part is getting everyone into the bubble safely without introducing the virus right at the start," he said. "This was always something I was worried about, but it has been shown to be a much bigger deal than I thought.
"I still believe that bubbles can work - it's just that nobody has mastered getting into the bubble safely."
Binney believes the answer may be to introduce an "airlock" system, where teams spend up to seven days in isolation in their home market before they travel, but even that will not fully mitigate the dangers.
As such, NBA commissioner Adam Silver remains concerned a "significant spread" of Covid-19 could burst the league's safety bubble and cause a second shutdown of the season.
"If we had any sort of a significant spread at all within our campus, we would be shut down again," he said on Tuesday as teams arrive in Orlando this week for training camp ahead of the league's resumption on July 30.
"It would be concerning if once (the players) sit through our quarantine period, and then were to test positive, we would know in essence there's a hole in our bubble.
"It's a very protected environment, but, again, this virus has humbled many.
"So I'm not going to express any higher level of confidence than we are following the protocols and we hope it works as we designed it."
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
