Sports: Playing with lives

As the number of coronavirus dead nationwide passes 90,000, well on its way to filling up America’s largest stadium (that’s Michigan Stadium, capacity 107,601), President Donald Trump envisions the day, sometime very soon, when such venues can be packed to the gills with shouting, maybe sneezing spectators.

“Things can happen very quickly,” he said Sunday. “We want to get back to normal where you have the big crowds, and they’re practically standing on top of each other and enjoying themselves, not where they’re worried.”

As wishful thinking of what life might look like around the bend, we can’t disagree. As guidance from the leader of a nation still suffering more than 1,000 pandemic deaths daily, where a majority of people are justifiably afraid of the risks of too-rapid reopening, it’s sheer stupidity.

Far saner is New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s call for sports leagues to get back to business without fannies in the seats. TV revenue would come back by the millions without risking a fresh wave of COVID deaths.

Reopening isn’t an either/ or proposition. The economy should return on a relatively fast track in places with the lowest coronavirus death tolls and the greatest hospital capacity. Even in New York, which reported 106 deaths Sunday down from a peak of 1,055, restrictions ought to be progressively relaxed.

But in any scenario, events that jam tens of thousands of people into cramped spaces for hours at a time should be the last to return. Unless the president wants to go first with a massive swing-state rally. Dare he?

New York Daily News