Don’t let Super Bowl become super spreader

Health officials worry gatherings could cause COVID-19 spikes as seen after Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Public health warnings in advance of the Super Bowl typically are about drinking and driving. Lots of food and alcoholic beverages are traditional fare for bowl watch parties at homes and bars, and the possibilities for driving under the influence leads to public reminders and DUI checkpoints to deter partiers and mitigate risk on the road.

This year brings a new risk and a new warning: Just as the nation may be turning a corner against COVID-19, health officials are concerned Super Bowl gatherings could cause spikes in the spread as witnessed after Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas holidays.

This time, the spike could be even more severe with the presence of the B.1.1.7 virus variant that is more contagious and potentially more dangerous than COVID version one.

The variant, which has already been confirmed in Montgomery County, raises the stakes as health departments race vaccine distribution with the potential to be overrun by new cases of the virus.

The elevated concerns prompted the nation’s pandemic expert Dr. Anthony Fauci to caution Americans to go easy on Super Bowl celebrations.

“You don’t want parties with people that you haven’t had much contact with,” Fauci said on NBC’s “Today” show “on Wednesday. “You just don’t know if they’re infected, so as difficult as that is, at least this time around, just lay low and cool it.”

Super Bowl LV will go on despite the pandemic that disrupted in part the regular National Football League season. The NFL has capped game attendance at 22,000 in the Tampa’s Raymond James Stadium.

The pandemic has also affected the airing of TV commercials, a widely anticipated part of the TV airing of the game every year. Advertisers for Budweiser, Coke, Pepsi and Hyundai are among those who will not be spending millions on messaging, opting instead to spend on pandemic relief at a time of national crisis.

Nonetheless, people will still get together to watch the big game and enjoy the tradition. Public health officials are concerned that those get-togethers and parties will lead to spikes, reversing the recent trends that show cases going down.

As of last week, southeastern Pa. counties continued to show downward trends in coronavirus percent-positivity rates, according to the latest data compiled by state health officials.

For the period Jan. 22 to Jan. 28, Montgomery County recorded a COVID-19 percentpositivity rate of 8.5%, a decrease from the 8.7% positivity rate recorded during the seven-day period Jan. 15 to Jan. 21, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Health’s COVID-19 Early Warning Monitoring System Dashboard.

Six neighboring counties also recorded positivity rates above the preferred 5% threshold for the most recent sevenday period, according to the state’s data, but showed positive downward trends in Berks and Chester.

Berks County recorded a positivity rate of 11.4% through Jan. 28, down from 13.2% the previous week. In Chester County, the positivity rate was 7.0% over the seven-day period ending Jan. 28, down from 8.4% the previous week. Delaware County recorded a positivity rate of 8.3% for the period ending Jan. 28, which was virtually flat, compared with the 8.2% positivity rate recorded the previous week.

The statewide percent-positivity rate as of Jan. 28 was 9.3%, down from the 10.4% positivity rate recorded the previous week.

As of Jan. 28, the state recorded a seven-day case increase of 25,985 cases of the virus, 5,823 fewer new cases compared to the previous week.

On Tuesday, state officials also reported that 621,021 state residents received the first dose of COVID-19 vaccines while 201,797 people had received the full two doses.

As vaccinations increase and cases decrease, public health officials have been expressing some cautious optimism. Their fear, as articulated in words of caution, are a repeat of the spikes in cases after Thanksgiving and Christmas when holiday gatherings occurred.

State and county public health officials have continued to advise everyone to wear masks, socially distance and avoid indoor gatherings. They say those precautions are more important than ever with the presence of virus variants.

The Super Bowl is a welcome diversion in a long year of isolation and being homebound. But it’s a diversion to be handled differently and carefully: Avoid the temptation to gather with people not in your own household.

Don’t let this Sunday in 2021 become the “super” event that spreads more virus: “Lay low and be cool.”