July 1 return shut down

The pandemic expert who shut down the NRL insists it is far too early to predict when the competition can resume – despite ARL Commission chairman Peter V’landys boldly declaring ‘‘none of what she said came true’’.

V’landys is hellbent on the game resuming in front of no crowds on July 1 to minimise the devastating financial impact of the Covid-19 crisis on the code.

He also refuses to close the door on alternative plans to relocate all 16 teams to Gladstone in Queensland so they can play out the remainder of the season.

‘‘We’re very optimistic about starting on the 1st of July,’’ he told Fox Sports on Monday. ‘‘The figures are encouraging in the last few days on the infection rate. They’re certainly nowhere near as much as our pandemic expert predicted. If that trend continues, that gives us two months to continue.’’

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, the NRL’s pandemic and biosecurity expert told the Sydney Morning Herald it was premature to make predictions about coronavirus trends – or when a return to the field could happen.

‘‘The flattening of the curve is the impact of the travel bans enacted between March 5-10 on Iran, South Korea and Italy,’’ the professor said. ‘‘It takes two to four weeks to see the impact of interventions in epidemics.

‘‘We won’t know until after the first week of April – until which time we will still be seeing the impact of travel bans – how it will progress from there.

‘‘There is likely still community transmission we have not detected because of a restrictive testing policy.

‘‘I think we can also see from the increasingly strict measures being implemented by the government that they, too, view the situation as serious based on the data and the expert advice they are getting and are placing protection of the community as the highest priority.’’

The professor advised the

NRL on March 23 that it should stop playing after a dramatic spike in positive coronavirus tests, making a startling prediction that a player could die if the competition continued.

‘‘It’s the calm before the storm – but that storm is coming,’’ she told the Sydney Morning Herald in an interview two days later. ‘‘What if one of your players gets sick and dies? Is it worth taking the risk of losing a player in the prime of their career?’’

Her advice swung from playing in front of no crowds to a complete shutdown when the federal and state governments in

Australia refused to close down schools. She was also prompted by a series of events over that weekend, including the docking of the infamous Ruby Princess cruise ship at Circular Quay as well as tens of thousands of people flocking to eastern suburbs beaches and failing to obey social distancing.

Understandably, V’landys wants the competition to resume as soon as possible, fearing the catastrophic consequences for the game’s future.

The reason for his optimism has been the decline in new cases of the coronavirus in recent days.