Tag: Anthony Fauci

“It’s not the classic basketball …

“It’s not the classic basketball season, but certainly for the people who are thirsting for basketball (and) who love basketball the way I do, it’s something that I think is a sound plan,” Fauci said. “I was very pleased to see that the intent was not reckless at all. They really wanted to make sure that the safety of the players and the people associated with the players was paramount. So I think that you might be able to do something like that with basketball. Could you extrapolate that to some of the other sports possibly? I think they should look at that model, see how it works, and then take it from there. Maybe modifications of that for some of the other sports.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci describes importance of testing as college athletics resume

Dr. Anthony Fauci describes vigorous testing needs as college sports return this fall. Read his opinions on the subject today.

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Earlier this week, the NCAA’s Division I Council approved voluntary athletic activities in men’s and women’s basketball and football, starting June 1.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, discussed coronavirus testing requirements as on-campus activities resume in an interview with the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Fauci stressed the importance of detailed oversight and extensive COVID-19 testing while college athletes return to campus.

Here is Fauci on testing college athletes, per the Chronicle of Higher Education:

“The athletes that tend to come back the earliest are the football players,” he told The Chronicle. “That’s a very intensive contact sport. What I think would be important if they’re 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.”

There is hope for college football and basketball this upcoming season. Fauci has provided the blueprint for the safest possible version of what we all want. Testing is clearly a necessity for the return of college sports.

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Dr. Anthony Fauci on what we need for college athletes in order to safely resume athletic training in June

The leading medical professional on the subject weighs in on college athletics returning

[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.

Anthony Fauci believes robust testing needs to be a part of college sports’ retun

Anthony Fauci weighs in on the need for coronavirus testing as college athletes begin to return to campuses.

The nation’s foremost expert on infectious diseases, Anthony Fauci, believes testing for COVID-19 is of utmost importance as college athletes begin to return to campus.

After the entire sporting world was shut down in mid-March, college athletics is beginning to slowly reopen. The NCAA’s Division I Council voted last week to allow voluntary workouts on campus beginning June 1, and Ohio State has announced its plans to welcome football athletes back on campus beginning on June 8.

And while that’s all well and good, and a positive sign for things beginning to return to some semblance of normalcy, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases cautioned the need for testing and oversight during a wide-ranging interview with the Chronicle of Higher Education.

“The athletes that tend to come back the earliest are the football players,” he told The Chronicle. “That’s a very intensive contact sport. What I think would be important if they’re 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.”

Everyone is anxious to get this country going again, and it is beginning to happen as businesses, industry, and yes — sports begin to come out of the fog from the measures put in place to mitigate the spread of the novel coronavirus. The issue is that nobody really knows where all of this leading, and whether we’ll see any re-emergence of the novel coronavirus.

Fauci believes because of that, testing must be an integral part of whatever reopening and maintenance plan is put in place. It’s hard to argue with that.

 

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Dr. Fauci says that football is the ‘perfect set up’ for spreading coronavirus

Dr. Anthony Fauci paints a grim picture as he explains what has to happen for the NFL season to take place on time.

Dr. Anthony Fauci wouldn’t go as fas as saying the 2020 NFL season is in danger of being postponed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the picture he painted for NBCSports.com’s Peter King is not a terribly bright one.

“The virus will make the decision for us,” Fauci said of the decision to start the 2020 season on time. While he does believe the infection numbers will wane between now and Week 1, Fauci referred to football as the “perfect set up” for spreading coronavirus.

“This is a respiratory virus, so it’s going to be spread by shedding virus,” Fauci told King. “The problem with virus shedding is that if I have it in my nasal pharynx, and it sheds and I wipe my hand against my nose—now it’s on my hand … But if people are in such close contact as football players are on every single play, then that’s the perfect set up for spreading. I would think that if there is an infected football player on the field—a middle linebacker, a tackle, whoever it is it—as soon as they hit the next guy, the chances are that they will be shedding virus all over that person.”

So even with empty stadiums and social distancing practices in place, preventing a spread among players would be basically impossible. Unless, of course, the league was able to test players extensively throughout the week leading up to a game.

“If you really want to be in a situation where you want to be absolutely certain, you’d test all the players before the game,” Fauci said. “And you say, Those who are infected: Sorry, you’re sidelined. Those who are free: Get in there and play.”

Even then, there’s no guarantee that every infected players would be flagged by testing, as Fauci explains:

“If I test today, and I’m negative, you don’t know if I got exposed tomorrow . . . There’s no guarantee that you’re going to get exposed and be positive the next day. To give you an example, you’re probably reading in the newspapers that there’s an infection in the White House. I was exposed to that person. So I immediately got tested. I am negative. So, I’m negative yesterday. I don’t know if I’m going to be negative Monday. Understand? It’s almost an impossible situation. To be 100 percent sure, you’ve got to test every day. But that’s not practical and that’s never going to happen.”

So maybe the start of the season isn’t in doubt if the infection numbers do subside over the course of the summer, but it sounds like finishing the season could be tricky … or unrealistic.

If only a handful of infected players slip through the testing cracks, it won’t be long before a significant number of players are exposed to the virus. And with a second wave likely coming in late fall, the number of infected players will only rise throughout the season.

Fauci says that the chances of an NFL season being played to completion is entirely dependent on the country’s response to that second wave. Based on how we’re handling the first wave, it’s hard to be optimistic.

You can read all of Fauci’s interview with King over at NBCSports.com. 

Tsai said NBA commissioner Adam Silver …

Tsai said NBA commissioner Adam Silver is primarily focused on safety. “I think Adam has said, ‘We are not looking at a date.’ Setting a target date doesn’t make any sense,” Tsai said. “Let’s look at the data. I think one of the most important things is, to Dr. [Anthony] Fauci’s point, you have to have enough tests. One of the most pernicious things about COVID-19 is you can be asymptomatic and be infectious, so you can infect other people while you look perfectly healthy. That’s a big problem. Without tests to identify those that are contagious, and then we try to isolate them, it’s really very difficult to restart and keep everybody safe and healthy.”

When asked how realistic the prospects …

When asked how realistic the prospects of playing out the season were, Leonsis cited Dr. Anthony Fauci’s recommendation that it could be possible, if the leagues commit to playing games without fans and quarantining players and necessary staff members in hotels. “The NBA is like our federal government, if you will,” Leonsis said. “It will take its lead from governors and the federal government and all of the public health associations, and we listen to them. We can’t play games on our own. We are operating in a suspended mode and all of our focus is on what to do about the remainder of the season.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci says sports could feasibly return in empty stadiums

Dr. Anthony Fauci wants to see his Washington Nationals back on the field.

Sports across the globe have been halted indefinitely due to the coronavirus pandemic, and many leagues have been formulating plans for a potential return to action should health officials give a clearance to play. It seems unlikely that fans will return en masse to stadiums before a COVID-19 vaccine is widely available, and some officials are questioning whether it’d be safe for teams to return to action even in isolation.

Ohio State AD Gene Smith argued that if it’s unsafe for fans to gather, it’s unsafe for players to do the same, but Major League Baseball is exploring the idea of holding the entire 2020 season in Arizona. Just this week, Florida governor Ron DeSantis was criticized for suggesting that NASCAR stage a race in the state without fans in attendance.

According to Dr. Anthony Fauci, though, such schemes to restart seasons may not be so harebrained after all. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, endorsed the idea of isolating athletes and having them finish seasons in empty stadiums in an interview with Peter Hamby.

Hamby: “Do you think those sports seasons are in jeopardy? Are we going to have college football this fall?”

Fauci: “There’s a way of doing that – nobody comes to the stadium. Put them in big hotels, you know, wherever you want to play. Keep them very well surveilled and have them tested, like every week, and make sure they don’t wind up infecting each other or their family and just let them play the season out.

I mean people say, you know, ‘well you can’t play without spectators.’ Well, I think you probably get enough buy-in from people who are dying to see a baseball game – particularly me! I’m living in Washington, we have the world champion Washington Nationals. I want to see them play again.”

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In an interview with Coach K that was …

In an interview with Coach K that was overrun with basketball analogies, Fauci stressed the same talking points that he has stressed in every appearance that he has made over the course of the last month. The coronavirus pandemic is incredibly serious, we have not yet come close to winning the fight against it and the only way to save lives, slow this thing down and get back to normal is social distancing.