Big sporting events linked to suffering and death — scientist

Liverpool’s Champions League game with Atletico Madrid and racing’s showpiece Cheltenham Festival “caused increased suffering and death” by going ahead in March, a leading scientist said yesterday.

Professor Tim Spector, who leads the UK’s largest Covid-19 tracking project, said rates of cases locally “increased severalfold” after the events.

Cheltenham attracted more than 250,000 spectators on March 10-13 and Liverpool played the Spanish side at Anfield on March 11 in front of a 52,000 crowd.

Figures show in the last week of March, Liverpool and Cheltenham were among the areas with the highest number of suspected cases.

Britain’s culture secretary Oliver Dowden said at the time there was “no reason for people not to attend such events or to cancel them at this stage”.

Spector, though, says having seen the subsequent statistics this advice was wrong.

“I think sporting events should have been shut down a week earlier because they’ll have caused increased suffering and death that wouldn’t otherwise have occurred,” he said.

The government replied that the blame could not be laid solely at the door of the sporting events.

“There are many factors that could influence the number of cases in a particular area, including population density, age, general health, and the position of an area on the pandemic curve,” it said.

However, Edge Health, a firm which analyses data for Britain’s National Health Service, has estimated the Champions League match was “linked to 41 additional deaths” at nearby hospitals between 25 and 35 days later, compared with similar hospital trusts that were used as a control.

Imperial College London and Oxford University have estimated Spain had about 640,000 positive coronavirus cases at the time of the match compared to 100,000 in Britain at that stage.

About 3,000 Spanish spectators were present when Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool lost to Atletico in the second-leg last 16 tie.

The match was the last major football fixture played in England before the lockdown.

In response to the claim that the match had caused additional deaths, Uefa said: “Any decision taken by Uefa which led to matches being postponed or played behind closed doors was taken in close collaboration with, and based on decisions made by, the relevant national authorities in the respective host countries.