Dr. Anthony Fauci: ‘There’s A Way’ For Sports To Return Quickly
Apr 15, 2020, 10:17 AM | Updated: 11:22 pm
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said “there’s a way” for sports to return quickly despite the coronavirus pandemic.
Fauci joined Snapchat’s Peter Hamby on Wednesday, April 15, for the first episode of a weeklong interview series.
“There’s a way of doing that. Nobody comes to the stadium. Put them in big hotels, wherever you want to play, keep them very well surveilled,” Fauci told Hamby. “Have them [players] tested every single week and make sure they don’t wind up infecting each other or their family and just let them play the season out.”
The episode was released less than a week after Seton Hall published the results of a poll that showed 72 percent of Americans said that they won’t attend games without a vaccine for COVID-19.
Fauci said he believed that there would be interest from fans to watch live games even without attending in person.
On Tuesday, President Donald Trump said that he is including sports commissioners and executives in a 200-person advisory group on re-opening the economy. Member of the President’s group includes NBA commissioner Adam Silver, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban.
“We have to get our sports back. I’m tired of watching baseball games that are 14 years old,” said Trump. “I haven’t actually had too much time to watch. I would say maybe I watch one batter then I get back to work.”
President Trump: “We want to get our sports back… we have to get our sports back.”
— Benny (@bennyjohnson) April 14, 2020
The majority of sporting events in the world were canceled or postponed in mid-March.
The first major domino to fall in the sporting world came after Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert tested positive for COVID-19 on March 11.
Shortly after Gobert’s test results were confirmed, the NBA suspended play of the 2019-20 season. The following day, many sports leagues around the globe followed suit.
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NBA commissioner Adam Silver said that his league doesn’t expect to make any decision on the season until at least May.
“Essentially, what I’ve told my folks over the last week is that we just should just accept that, at least for the month of April, we won’t be in a position to make any decisions,” Silver said. “And I don’t think that necessarily means on May 1 we will be.”
Without games, the NBA produced live content to try and fill in the gaps. In recent weeks, the league and some of its players, including Jazzmen Mike Conley and Donovan Mitchell, have participated in events such as a H-O-R-S-E competition and basketball video game tournament.
Two additional episodes Fauci’s Snapchat interview are scheduled to be released Thursday, April 16 and Friday, April 17.
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