Will Giants and A’s games feel safe for fans?

Health experts weigh in on if they would go

Dr. Shannon Bennett’s position at the California Academy of Sciences carries a measure of prestige and dignity. She’s the chief of science and an expert in microbiology, but Bennett transforms into a typically raucous sports fan when she attends Giants games.

She yells loudly while sitting close to other people. She holds a beer in one hand and a messy hot dog in the other, with a box of popcorn wedged between her knees.

She might trade high-fives with a complete stranger when the Giants score.

“That’s the way I roll,” Bennett said. “If I think about (virus) transmission opportunities in that scenario, there are a lot of them.”

One year ago Thursday, the NBA suspended its season and the sports world screeched to a halt at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. Spectators all but disappeared from sporting events around the country, even when competition resumed.

Now, as vaccines offer increasing hope, fans are starting to resurface — in limited numbers — at spring training ballparks, basketball arenas and golf tournaments. It’s logical for Bay Area fans to picture themselves returning, too, to finally watch their favorite teams in person.

But when will it feel safe? That counts as a vital question for sports fans weighing the risks and rewards of attending live events. So in an effort to gain insight into this uncommon quan

dary, The Chronicle contacted several infectious disease experts to gauge their attitudes.

This conversation soon will become more relevant: State officials announced last week they will allow some spectators at outdoor stadiums starting April 1, with masks and social distancing required. That means A's and Giants fans will have the option of returning to the Coliseum and Oracle Park for early-season games.

The Warriors also hope to host fans later this season — they have a seasonending six-game homestand May 6-16 — though state and local officials have offered no indication of plans to ease restrictions on indoor venues.

Our impromptu medical panel offered a range of responses on the when-will-it-feel-safe question. Dr. John Swartzberg, a UC Berkeley infectiousdisease expert, does not expect to attend a sporting event until fall. Dr. George Rutherford of UCSF, by contrast, is close to feeling comfortable going to an outdoor baseball game provided it's not “densely populated.”

Bennett acknowledged the volume level at live events makes her hesitant to return. Fans cheering (and jeering) loudly can send respiratory droplets farther than 6 feet and increases the chances of spreading the virus.

“That's really important,” she said. “It's not fun to yell with a mask. ... Spontaneous, collective exuberance is essential to the sports experience. That's part of the joy, but it adds risk. So we just have to be very careful.”

Bennett finds herself regularly checking new daily coronavirus cases in the Bay Area. That number has slowly fallen in the past two months — from a seven-day average of more than 4,000 in January to less than 1,000 per day now — but she needs to see a steeper drop before attending an event at a crowded venue.

Another point made by Bennett and other experts: How diligently will stadium officials enforce mask-wearing? Even if attendance is restricted to 20% of capacity (in red-tier counties such as San Francisco), and even if masks are mandatory, some spectators figure to forgo them, as many did during spring training games and at last weekend's PGA Tour event in Orlando.

Dr. Warner Greene of the Gladstone Institutes expects masking to stay in place, even outdoors, until the U.S. reaches herd immunity through vaccinations. That remains at least several months away, forcing sports fans like Greene to make tricky decisions before then.

Greene avidly follows the Warriors, watching every game on television for the past seven-plus years. He has a friend with good seats at Chase Center, so Greene sometimes joined him pre-pandemic.

But in calculating his comfort level to return to a Warriors game anytime soon — well, it's complicated.

“I would feel comfortable going to a game with 50% capacity if a significant part of the crowd were vaccinated ... provided it's the virus we're dealing with right now,” Greene said. “That's the problem. There are variants coming, which may avoid some effects of the vaccine.”

Swartzberg also attended occasional Warriors games before the shutdown, in addition to regularly going to Cal football games. He expects the pace of vaccinations to accelerate next month, so the dynamics of this debate could change by summer.

For now, Swartzberg anticipates he will be comfortable returning to a baseball or football game later this year — assuming the crowds are reduced enough to allow for social distancing while entering the stadium, ordering food and using the restroom.

“Personally, the earliest I could conceive of going to a sporting event is the fall,” Swartzberg said. “And indoor would be a lot later than outdoor. I don't have it in my mind's eye yet when I would go to an indoor sporting event.

“I think it can be done relatively safely, but the calculus I do in my own mind is that I'm going to take baby steps now that I'm vaccinated.”

Swartzberg also offered a blunt assessment about NBA games, given the high risk of virus transmission indoors. He said “it makes no sense” for the Warriors to host fans this season, before case rates drop more.

Two other infectiousdisease experts, Dr. Melanie Ott of Gladstone and Dr. Dean Winslow at Stanford Hospital, point to ventilation as a key factor in allowing spectators to return to indoor arenas. The efficiency of HVAC systems, as Winslow noted, varies widely — likely poor at a high school gym built in the 1950s, probably excellent at a state of the art arena such as Chase Center.

UCSF'S Rutherford worked with the Warriors as they developed an ambitious plan in the fall to test all spectators ahead of games, at a cost of about $30 million. San Francisco officials rejected the plan — which would have allowed more than 9,000 fans, or 50% capacity — but raised the possibility of allowing 25% capacity when the city reaches the yellow tier.

Now the Warriors are proposing not to let spectators bring food or drinks into the arena bowl. That would help address a common concern expressed by our panel: people who remove their masks to eat.

Rutherford acknowledged the risks involved with crowds at indoor sporting events, but he cautioned the outdoors is not a “magic cure.”

“If you're standing 2 feet away without masks and someone coughs in your face, you're in trouble,” he said. “You still have to have some distance, and you absolutely have to have masking.”

Rutherford suggested sporting events ultimately may require proof of vaccination for spectators to enter a stadium or arena. That probably wouldn't happen until at least late summer, he said, after all adults have had a chance to get the vaccine.

For now, as the sports world cautiously starts to reopen, fans must decide when spontaneous, collective exuberance is worth the risk.