COVID chaos has returned
When you saw the packed stadiums and arenas, when you knew that nearly all athletes had been vaccinated, when there was little mention of positive tests or quarantines, it was so easy to believe the worst was over.
Sports, it seemed, had survived the COVID-19 pandemic. Not so fast.
By taking their eye off the ball (or puck), professional and college sports left themselves susceptible to just the sort of chaos we’ve seen in recent days.
Games postponed. Practices canceled. Scores of players in isolation after testing positive or being around someone who did. The Browns facing the possibility of starting a quarterback they just signed off the practice squad.
COVID has made a rousing comeback. Even when games are played, they are often marred by those who aren’t there.
In a rather ludicrous spectacle that passed for an NHL game, the Predators defeated the Avalanche 5-2 Thursday night with both rosters ravaged by COVID.
The Avs were losing players right up to the opening faceoff and took the ice with just 16 skaters. The Predators had seven players sidelined by the virus protocols, not to mention its entire coaching staff.
“It just seemed like one after another. It was weird,” said Roman Josi, who scored for the Predators. “I don’t think any one of us ever went through something like that.”
The Avs were given the option of postponing the game. They chose to play.
“I just went to our players and said, ‘Hey what do you guys want to do?’” Avs coach Jared Bednar said. “We’re here to play a game. They were short-handed, we were short-handed. We’re not using COVID as an excuse.”
The NBA and NFL are dealing with the same sort of issues, along with several college hoops teams. A men’s game was hastily thrown together Saturday in Las Vegas between No. 21 Kentucky and North Carolina after their original opponents — No. 15 Ohio State and No. 4 UCLA — pulled out because of COVID. So what’s next?
Much of that depends of how effectively the pro leagues and college conferences are able to mitigate the spread of the virus in the next few weeks, a difficult task hampered by the rise of the highly contagious omicron variant.
The one thing that’s not going to happen is a widespread shutdown of sports.
Sports lost billions of dollars in 2020. The owners are not about to let that happen again.
At least 800,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 in less than two years, according to John Hopkins University. Stunningly, far more people have died in 2021 than the previous year, even though highly effective vaccines are now widely available. The virus still has a death rate of 1.6% in the U.S. — roughly 16 times greater than the flu.
Hopefully, at some point, we’ll get to a stage in this horrible pandemic where most people are immunized and effective treatments are widely available.
Maybe there will come a time when COVID-19 is viewed as roughly the equivalent of the common cold. But, as sports has discovered in recent days, we’re not there yet. Not even close.