[lawrence-newsletter]Dr. Anthony Fauci, a well-known epidemiologist who has been at the front of the United States’ fight against COVID-19, recently spoke about how college athletics can resume activities next month when restrictions start to lift. Fauci recently spoke to The Chronicle of Higher Education and touched on what universities need in order to resume athletics. His main point was that we need to, “essentially test all the students before they come in, just so that you know what the baseline of infection is.” He then added a specific point about college athletes.
“The athletes that tend to come back the earliest are the football players. That’s a very intensive contact sport. What I think would be important if they are going to do that is to test all the players and make sure that when they do come in, they come in all negative at the same time and then do the same sort of surveillance of them and make sure the people who are associated with them — the people who serve their meals, the people who are involved in training with them — also are protected in the sense of wearing masks and doing social distancing to the extent possible.”
The leading medical professional on the subject is clear that we need rampant testing in order to be able to play safely. There should be considerable optimism for American sports fans based on the fact that other countries such as South Korea and Germany have returned to athletics and have the testing capabilities in place to play sports safely. We are all ready for a college football season, and hopefully it can safely be the unifying event that we all know and love.