US professional sports federations call a sound an escalating omicron infection: Coronavirus Update: NPR
Fans wave during the pre-season game between the Seattle Seahawks and Las Vegas Raiders at Allegiant Stadium on August 14 in Las Vegas.
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Ethan Miller / Getty Images
Fans wave during the pre-season game between the Seattle Seahawks and Las Vegas Raiders at Allegiant Stadium on August 14 in Las Vegas.
Ethan Miller / Getty Images
The professional sports world is returning to chaos with the entry of the omicron variant.
Players have been benched after testing positive, games have been canceled or postponed, and players’ leagues and leagues are scrambling to figure out how to move forward in a cloud of uncertainty. .
NHL postponed 27 games so far and will postpone another 12 through Thursday because of COVID. NBA postponing five games because of the number of players and staff involved in the league’s COVID-19 protocols. NFL game delay are also piling up.
The NHL and National Hockey Players Association announced Sunday that the regular season will resume, but cross-border games between the US and Canada will be rescheduled.
Just a day earlier, the NHL said they had strengthen coronavirus safety measures faces omicron at least through January 7, including increased testing requirements for both vaccinated and unvaccinated players.
The NFL seems to take a different tack. Starting Sunday, the federation said it would only test players who were unvaccinated and showed symptoms, Associated Press reported. Vaccinated players will no longer be tested weekly.
“It’s not about relaxing our standards,” Dr Allen Sills, the federation’s chief medical officer, said according to the AP. “If anything, we just offer a higher degree of accuracy in measuring ourselves than a more precise ruler.”
Sills encourages players to report symptoms to the league, get booster shots and limit their exposure to the virus, According to NFL Network reporter Mike Garafolo.
Scientists believe that omicron variant spreads faster than any previous variant, and it was also better at causing breakthrough infections in vaccinated people. What is not clear is whether it is more or less severe than earlier strains, such as delta.
Professional sports leagues do not require players to be vaccinated, but most players do. The leagues also have strict testing regimes, and experts say that means it’s possible that the high number of infections they are recording now is an indication of what to expect for general population.
Zach Binney, sports epidemiologist at Oxford University Emory University: “I worry that there is a possibility – maybe not, but it is possible – that this number of sports tournaments is a canary in the coal mine for the rest of us. , told NPR on Wednesday.
It is unclear how long this period of increased caution will last. But the NHL and the players’ union, citing disrupted schedules and the pandemic, also said they were “actively discussing” the player’s participation in the 2022 Winter Olympics, which will begin in Beijing. , China, in February.
