MLB takes a step back as outbreak hits Marlins
Chances are ‘good’ Marlins outbreak came out of Miami
Multiple Miami players test positive for COVID-19 as team may have created a super-spread environment, expert says.
The baseball world was partially paralyzed Monday when two Major League Baseball games were postponed after an outbreak of positive tests for the novel coronavirus among the Marlins.
The 14 positive tests among players and staff forced the Marlins to push back their home opener in Miami against Baltimore and the Phillies – who hosted the Marlins in Philadelphia this weekend at Citizens Bank Park – to postpone at least one game against the visiting Yankees.
Yet one expert isn’t altogether surprised it was the Marlins who produced the first super-spreading event in an MLB season that aims to jam 60 games through 66 days amid a global pandemic.
“Chances are really good this came out of Miami,” says Jill Roberts, an infectious disease expert at the University of South Florida.
“The timeframe, the huge amount of community spread there and, unfortunately, (the Marlins) seem to have created their own super-spread environment.
“My guess is one person acquired it and spread it within the establishment. So the question is, where did they have a breakdown that allowed that to happen.”
MLB’s more than 100 pages of health and safety protocols strongly urge players to limit their number of contacts and avoid frequenting restaurants on the road in favor of staying in hotel rooms.
Yet Roberts says it’s almost certain that the contact who first transmitted the virus did so before the Marlins left Miami.
The club played exhibition games last Tuesday and Wednesday in Atlanta before continuing to Philadelphia for their season-opening three-game series, creating an even more tangled web of potential contacts.
It also calls into question MLB’s plan to play home games in 28 markets, all of which have greatly varying conditions in regard to virus spread. The Canadian government, for one, put up a roadblock that forced the Blue Jays to move home games in Toronto to Buffalo rather than have the Blue Jays and teams from Florida, Atlanta and other hot spots come through Ontario.
And few spots for the virus are hotter than Florida.
Miami-Dade County’s COVID-19 daily positive rate averaged 20% between July 7 and July 20, more than quadruple the 5% the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cite as a bench mark for “hot spots.” That 14-day average spans the bulk of the Marlins’ “summer camp” and right before they left for Atlanta and Philadelphia.
The virus surge in Florida – which now counts more than 430,000 cases and nearly 6,000 deaths – has largely been attributed to young people, as the weather has warmed and activities opened up. And the Marlins are among baseball’s youngest teams, with 11 players 25 or younger on the 30-man squad that traveled to Atlanta and Philadelphia.
“They’re the demographic of problematic Floridians right now, the age group,” says Roberts. “I wouldn’t be shocked to find out someone broke their promises to not do any social activity at all.”
The younger player demographic creates higher risks beyond impetuous social decisions. They are more likely to live in temporary quarters even at home – be it a hotel, rental condominium or extended stay setup, relative to a veteran player who has been with a team several years.
The team is about to get a lot younger, too. Whenever the Marlins do get back on the field, they’ll have to tap into their 60-person player pool with talent left behind at the club’s alternate training site in Jupiter, in similarly hard-hit Palm Beach County. That group is largely younger minor leaguers, including their two most recent top draft picks, outfielder J.J. Bleday and pitcher Max Meyer.
And what of Philadelphia?
The city’s Department of Health, in a statement to USA TODAY Sports, said it has been “working closely with both the Phillies and Marlins teams” and “supports the decision by the Marlins to shelter in Philadelphia in response to the positive test.”
“Members of the Marlins’ organization who have tested positive are in isolation in the team hotel, which is taking all of the recommended precautions to protect staff, including no-touch food delivery,” a department spokesperson said. “We are in consultation with the Phillies’ organization to ensure that they are following MLB safety and testing protocols with players and staff. Per those protocols, the Phillies have been in frequent contact with the Health Department providing updates on both the Phillies and Marlins’ staffs and teams. The Marlins are conducting contact tracing as is described in the MLB protocol and have also been in contact with the Health Department.
“We have no comment on the state of the baseball season. The risk from the MLB situation to Philadelphians is extremely low.”
For now, the Phillies and Yankees are on hold; it’s conceivable the series could be moved to Yankee Stadium, but that also calls into question whether any Phillies were infected by the Marlins, and if that would invite the virus into another environment.
“What worries me a lot is it takes a while for somebody positive to test positive,” says Roberts.
Citizens Bank Park, though, shouldn’t be off limits for too long; Roberts says after environmental cleaning, the virus, without a host, shouldn’t pose a risk even in indoor areas of the ballpark for more than 48 hours.
Meanwhile, 10 other major league games were to proceed Monday, with the season imperiled but not yet dead. The players involved will have been recently tested, be surrounded by an abundance of personal protective equipment and sanitizers and be among a population highly motivated to make the season work.
Yet it will also be hard to ignore the first major breakdown: one team, affecting up to four others.
“This will be eye opening for those who thought, we live in a bubble and are fine,” says Roberts. “A healthy player in that type of age group is highly unlikely to have a serious case. A manager with co-morbidity is a different case.
“We all take risks to some extent, but these are extraordinary. I’m sorry to see this outbreak occur. There are so many people involved. But this is the definition of that super-spreader event. And it will be interesting to trace back the route spread.”