Is Florida ready to play?
NBA and MLS make plans to set up shop, but what if the state isn't prepared?
Over the many weeks of preparation and consideration as professional sports leagues worked on ways to get back to action, they have confronted two main challenges: the health and safety protocols required to stage games, and the logistics of cramming an abbreviated schedule into a short period of time.
The National Basketball Association and Major League Soccer were the first to settle on plans, which would see them finish their seasons over the summer in Florida.
But now a new problem has arisen: Florida.
It’s one that everyone involved probably knew was coming. Back in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, Florida was the go-to spot for images of people giving zero poops about COVID19, whether it was heavily refreshed Spring Break revellers or oblivious seniors doing aqua-fit classes in their gated golf-course communities. State Governor Ron Desantis has long given off vibes of the mayor from Jaws, who insisted the beaches of Amity Island remain open despite the presence of a killer shark. He’s been pushing ahead with an economic reopening and inviting all sports to come on down to his state and stage their games, from MMA to the WWE to major pro leagues. If the Allengland Lawn Tennis Club had a mind to do it, Desantis would have happily staged Wimbledon next month in Boca Raton.
Unsurprisingly, the fullsteam-ahead strategy has not been great for virus containment. Florida keeps recording new daily highs for COVID-19 cases, a trend it shares with several states in the south. Where the graphs of daily infections in countries that have largely contained the virus show a curve sloping downward, the picture for Florida is alarming: infections decreased from April and through May, but now they are shooting up sharply. The state is at the point in Jaws when Chief Brody realized he was going to need a bigger boat.
So far, the NBA and MLS are continuing with their plans, probably because it is too late to pick another state. Each is also hoping that the vast space afforded by the Walt Disney World complex, currently bereft of families wearing Mickey ears, will allow them to keep players and staff out of reach of the coronavirus. They could be right on that, as there is room to keep everyone ensconced in a bubble that would include hotels, restaurants and courts and pitches. The NBA’S plans also include entertainment options for the players holed up at Disney, from golf to billiards to movie nights.
Florida changed some of its coronavirus reporting methodology mid-pandemic, and when a health official protested that this would under-count COVID-19 cases, she was replaced.
But the importance of keeping a virtual moat around Disney becomes obvious when looking at what is happening beyond it. In Orange Country, which includes Orlando, health authorities are reporting sharp COVID-19 increases. Two weeks ago, on June 3, the county reported 38 new cases. On Monday that number was 175 and on Tuesday it was 178. Wednesday’s number was a somewhat better 139, still up dramatically from early June. And while Desantis has waved off the state’s rise in new cases as the mere result of increased testing that will inevitably uncover more positive results, that is evidently not the case in Orange County. Two weeks ago authorities had about 2,700 daily test results and less than two per cent of them were positive. On Monday they received about 2,100 results and eight per cent of them were positive. By Tuesday, testing had fallen to fewer than 1,200 results and more than 11 per cent were positive. So, fewer tests and a significantly increased rate of positives: Not great!
(It is also worth noting that Florida changed some of its coronavirus reporting methodology mid-pandemic, and when a health official protested that this would under-count COVID-19 cases, she was replaced. So, even the rising numbers that the state is releasing might be artificially low. Really not great!)
There is time, of course, for these numbers to change. Some countries have seen case counts rise as testing ramps up, and then fall back down once more sources of transmission have been identified and contained. But that decrease in cases has usually happened with lockdown and quarantine measures still in place. In Florida, where case counts are soaring, the lockdowns are over and the welcome mat is out.
It all leads to a potential nightmare scenario for the leagues planning to set up shop in the state. It has taken a lot of planning and discussion to get to this point, picking suitable locations, setting up guidelines and procedures and basically just trying to figure out if they could adjust all of their operations on the fly. Now the location itself is the bright red flashing light. The challenge of walling off their employees from the virus becomes all the more challenging if the situation in Florida is worsening.
Even if they are confident that their safety protocols, which include frequent and repeated COVID-19 tests, will be enough to keep their Disney bubbles free of the virus, how is it going to look if, just as games are getting underway, the state is dealing with overcrowded hospitals and emergency rooms?
Adam Silver, the NBA commissioner, has insisted for months now that his league would only resume play once it was safe to do so. But does he want to have his teams inside Disney’s castle walls, while outside the keep the virus is raging?