How the 49ers’ Super Bowl loss possibly saved fans from spreading coronavirus

Well, this probably takes the sting out of it for San Francisco fans.

Andrew Beaton and Ben Cohen of the Wall Street Journal published a fascinating story today that changes the way anyone should look at the result of Super Bowl LIV.

In it, they detail how the 49ers’ second-half collapse coincided with doctors in the Bay area rushing to prepare to treat their first COVID-19 cases. In fact, the University of California San Francisco opened a command center to deal with the virus the morning after the Super Bowl. Two patients who’d tested positive for the disease were admitted that day.

So, had the 49ers held on to win they would have given a city where coronavirus was likely already spreading a reason to gather — in large numbers and without anything approaching social distancing:

There could have been hundreds of thousands of fans on the streets of San Francisco at a Super Bowl parade a few days later.
Some experts who have studied the Bay Area’s containment of the virus have reached a surprising conclusion about these simultaneous events of Super Bowl Sunday: San Francisco likely won when the 49ers lost.

The story goes on to posit that between 500,000 and 1.5 million people could have gathered for the championship parade, and points out that such a gathering — with its packed-in crowds made up of happy, drinking, hugging people — would be ripe for spreading a respiratory illness.

Kansas City, meanwhile, was one of the last NFL cities to report a coronavirus case — a full six weeks later, by which time San Francisco was under a shelter-in-place order — meaning its parade was safe by comparison.

Honestly, it feels surreal to even think about the Super Bowl now. Sports (and life) has been shut down for more than a month, and nobody has a reasonable idea of when it might return. But if you want to re-live the Chiefs’ stirring comeback — or more precisely, the confounding way in which the 49ers failed to stop it — our Steven Ruiz has you covered.

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