NHL examines on-ice transmission
The signs that COVID-19 would wreak havoc on the 2021 NHL season were there before the first puck even dropped.
Five days prior to opening night on Jan. 13, the league announced the defending Western Conference champion Dallas Stars would not open the season as scheduled because 17 players had contracted COVID-19 during training camp.
Since then, seven more teams have been sidelined because of COVID-19. The toll so far has been 35 games postponed and at least 124 players landing on the NHL’s COVID-19 list. Players are put on the list for several reasons, from testing positive for COVD-19 to high-risk close contact to quarantining following a trade.
Meanwhile, the NBA – which started three weeks before the NHL – has postponed 29games on account of the coronavirus. The NFL just completed 100% of its 16-game season and playoffs, albeit with 18 make-up games. MLB, the first North American pro sports league to not play in a bubble last year, postponed more than 40 games before completing its shortened season, though two teams did not play all 60 games scheduled.
What may make the NHL unique is the possibility that the coronavirus is being transmitted during play. In other leagues, including major college football, there has been no documented evidence that players or officials are contracting COVID-19 as a result of competing.
But the NHL is now acknowledging that COVID-19 may be spreading around the league as a result of on-ice contact and because the more contagious strains have infiltrated the league.
“We continue to evaluate the issue, and have introduced new technological and scientific interventions to assist us,” NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said in a statement to USA TODAY Sports. “At this point, we don’t feel we have sufficient information to draw a definitive conclusion.”
Players and coaches are sounding more and more certain that they are contracting COVID-19 from each other on the ice, but experts are not as sure.
Mark Poloncarz, the Erie County (New York) executive, said he believes the two-game series between the New Jersey Devils and Buffalo Sabres at the end of January was a super-spreader event. In total, 24 players from the games went on the COVID-19 list, two officials tested positive for COVID-19 and Sabres coach Ralph Krueger had “moderately severe” symptoms.
Minnesota Wild forward Marcus Foligno is convinced his positive test from Jan. 30 was the result of playing the Los Angeles Kings on Jan. 26 and 28.
And Detroit Red Wings coach Jeff Bashill said he thinks the five cases on his team were the result of playing the Carolina Hurricanes on Jan. 14 and 16.
“I think we have a couple of anecdotal cases that might suggest that it was (onice transmission), and obviously that concerns us,” Daly told ESPN. “That’s why we’re doing the genomic sequencing testing to see if we can get a better
handle on that issue. Whether there was in-game transmission between teams, whether there were any unique circumstances associated with that, including the fact that it might be a different strain than we typically been dealing with and facing in the past; which, you know, there’s some anecdotal evidence that that may be the case as well.”
The NHL’s struggles to contain spread of the coronavirus prompted the league last week to issue heightened protocols for the second time this year. That included daily rapid-result testing and barring access to arenas earlier than 1 hour, 45 minutes before game time.
Also, in a nod to potential on-ice transmission, the league mandated the removal of plexiglass around the team benches and the penalty box to improve airflow.
Jose-Luis Jimenez, a professor of chemistry at the University of Colorado who specializes in aerosol research, said the lack of air circulation can allow the coronavirus to remain in the air longer.
“I was wondering what was happening in these hockey matches because they tend to have those barriers (boards and plexiglass) and those barriers could basically be accumulating that air,” Jimenez said. “They either don’t have good ventilation or they’re not wearing good masks that are well-fit. Then, they could give it to each other within the team.”
However, Dr. Benjamin P. Linas, associate professor of medicine at the Boston University School of Medicine and an infectious disease physician at Boston Medical Center, argued that airborne transmission is not the major source of NHL outbreaks.
“It’s like the butterfly effect,” Linas said. “The virus lands in some place and sometimes it just takes off and sometimes it doesn’t and some of that is pure damn luck. If you happen to walk by at the wrong time, et cetera, and it could be happening in the NHL, but that’s a lot of teams to just be bad luck.”
While Linas stressed that the coronavirus spread in the NHL may be attributed to several factors, he did acknowledge hockey could be at a disadvantage because it is played indoors on ice and in low humidity, conditions that allow viruses to thrive and live longer.
In football, linemen huff and puff in each other’s faces before players pile up at the end of nearly every play – but it’s outdoors. Basketball players are in proximity with the opposition for the duration of the game, like hockey, though they play on a warmer surface.
Little research is available on teamto-team spread, Jimenez said, but he and his colleagues have been arguing that airborne transmission is nearly as prevalent as person-to-person.
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