Fauci warns of COVID-19 danger playing into October
TAMPA — Dr. Anthony Fauci may have grown up a Yankees fan in Brooklyn and enjoyed the Nationals first World Series win last fall, but the nation’s top infectious disease expert doesn’t want to see either team playing this October.
In fact, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, doesn’t want to see any baseball being played in October, the month that is normally dedicated to MLB playoffs.
“If the question is time, I would try to keep it in the core summer months and end it not with the way we play the World Series, until the end of October when it’s cold. I would avoid that,” Fauci said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times.
With the expectation of a second spike in coronavirus cases in the fall, however, there is a concern about playing in the colder weather. The coronavirus shut down baseball back in March and players and owners have been looking for ways to make up some of the lost revenues. An expanded playoff scenario reaching deep into November is one of the ideas that has been suggested. COVID-19 has killed over 118,000 Americans and wreaked havoc on the country’s economy. Baseball is no exception and the league and players union have been very publicly fighting over how to lay a financial framework to get the game going again.
Fauci made it clear that there really is a small window for that to happen, with cases spiking in several states where teams are based or spend their spring training.
“Even in warm weather,
like in Arizona and California, we’re starting to see resurgences as we open up [after shelter-at-home periods],” Fauci told the Times. “But I think the chances of there being less of an issue in the end of July and all of August and September are much, much better than if you go into October.”
But, Fauci admitted that the doctors, scientists and public health officials are just making their best guesses at this point. Since the first reported cases in the United States in late January, they are still learning about the virus and are unsure of what is next.
“This virus is one that keeps fooling us,” Fauci said. “Under most circumstances — but we don’t know for sure here — viruses do better when the weather starts to get colder and people start spending more time inside, as opposed to outside. The community has a greater chance of getting infected.
“The likelihood is that, if you stick to the core summer months, you are better off, even though there is no guarantee,” Fauci said. “If you look at the kinds of things that could happen, there’s no guarantee of anything. You would want to do it at a time when there isn’t the overlap between influenza and the possibility of a fall second wave.”
One thing that health officials are becoming more certain of is that the safest way to stop community spread is through physical distancing and wearing face masks. That obviously does not work in a crowded ballpark of fans screaming and cheering for their team, but Fauci said there is a chance that baseball could open their gates.
“Unless you have a dramatic diminution in cases, I would feel comfortable in spaced seating, where you fill one-half or one-third or whatever it is of the stadium, and everybody is required to wear a mask in the stadium,” Fauci said.
This may all be a moot point as the league and union have seemingly hit an impasse in negotiations to try and start the 2020 season.
The league and union agreed to a deal in March that gave the players $170 million in advanced salary and MLB commissioner Rob Manfred control to start the season paying the players prorated salaries.
The players, who will not move off the salary concessions they made in the March agreement, last offered an 89game schedule beginning July 10 and gave the owners the expanded playoffs they want not just for 2020, but also next year as well.
MLB has tried to renegotiate that deal citing the fact they will be unable to allow fans into ballparks because of the virus for much of the season, making the prorated salaries too expensive.
The owners’ last proposal was for a 72-game season beginning July 14 that would allow the players to earn approximately 70% of their salary if the postseason is played to completion.
The union shot that down immediately and responded with a statement that ended by saying they were ready to play, and demanded Manfred tell them when and where.
On Monday, however, Manfred
said he was not confident there will be a 2020 season, reflecting the owners’ concerns that if a season is implemented under the March deal the union would immediately file a grievance. That could leave the owners open having to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in back pay.