"Why a Second Wave Could Be Even Worse for Sports"

If you’ve been following the likes of Dr. Scott Gottlieb on Twitter or watching the (sadly) prescient Netflix documentary, Pandemic, you know that second waves have often been worse than initial pandemics outbreaks.

So as the PGA Tour positions itself to be the first (and still only major sport) to schedule a return without fans (first four weeks), the inability of other sports to set return dates makes clearly some leagues are fearful of being the sport that starts a second wave.

Thanks to reader John for sending along Louise Radnofsky and Ben Cohen’s Wall Street Journal piece considering the dangers of a second wave setting the sports world back should such a gathering be responsible for another outbreak.

While the story focuses on the danger of crowds, even a gathering of athletes who then go off to airports and hotels and another city a week later, could be disastrous.

Scott Gottlieb, the former Food and Drug Administration commissioner who is advising the Trump administration on its coronavirus policy, says he sees a high risk of a second wave in the fall. He’s been pushing for a staggered return of activities. His plan calls for gradually scaling back up again, based on the size of the gatherings and their significance, and monitoring the effects at each stage.

Mass gatherings for sports games are at the bottom of his list. The sight of fans in stadiums is contingent on a “quiescent” fall and robust system of testing and contact tracing to identify and isolate new cases— as well as measures that include fever guns, hand sanitizer handouts and masks inside stadiums.

“We could bring lawn maintenance crews back at the end of the month with very low risk, but we can’t fill up stadiums,” he said Wednesday. “I think the entertainment venues are going to be some of the last things we bring back… Sports are going to be played with no fans for a while.”