Super Bowl reminder: Heed all virus precautions

The nation’s top health officials sounded the alarm about Sunday’s Super Bowl being a potential superspreader event, and they urged people to gather with friends over Zoom, not in crowds.

“I’m worried about Super Bowl Sunday, quite honestly. People gather, they watch games together. We’ve seen outbreaks already from football parties,” said Rochelle Walensky, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers comes as the nation sees a dramatic drop in new virus cases — a sign that the infection spike from holiday gatherings is easing. The sevenday rolling average for daily new cases went from 180,489 as of Jan. 22 to 125,854 as of Friday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

After a long year of shutdowns, it remains to be seen whether Americans will heed the warnings for an event that was watched by more than 100 million people last year. The fact that it’s Tom Brady seeking his seventh Super Bowl victory against Kansas City’s star quarterback, Patrick Mahomes, only adds to the intrigue surrounding the game.

The game will be played in front of about 22,000 fans in Tampa, many of them vaccinated health workers. Tampa Mayor Jane Castor announced a temporary ordinance requiring that masks be worn outside in several popular gathering spots. The order states that violators could be fined $500 as a “last resort.”

Another ordinance requires masks at any indoor location when social distancing is not possible. That would include many bars and restaurants but not private residences.

The city has acquired 150,000 donated masks that officials were giving out ahead of the Super Bowl. The slogan is “need a mask, just ask.”

Castor, a former Tampa police chief, said she is keenly aware that the goal is to prevent the game from becoming an event that triggers a spike in infections.

“We are hosting an event that is going to be the most watched sporting event in the entire world,” she said. “We have got to get this right.”

As part of that effort, Castor released a joint video with Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas urging caution. Last year, an estimated 20,000 people showed up at the Power & Light District in downtown Kansas City to watch the Super Bowl on a massive screen.

Lucas called for the exact opposite in the video: “I encourage everyone to celebrate in small groups instead of squeezing into a crowded bar.”

The Kansas Hospital Association enlisted the Chiefs’ playbyplay announcer to do a public service announcement urging health precautions.