Tag: William Schaffner

NCAA coronavirus advisory panel: Amesh Adalja discusses how college football season is a ‘risk’ to be played

Amesh Adalja discusses how college football season is a ‘risk’ to be played.

The NCAA has established a coronavirus advisory panel to guide its response to the outbreak of the disease.

Dr. William Schaffner, M.D., and Professor, Preventive Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, previously discussed with Vols Wire of the reality if the college football season can be played in 2020.

Schaffner is part of the NCAA coronavirus advisory panel alongside Amesh Adalja, M.D. – Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security.

Adalja also discussed the coronavirus outbreak and the reality of not having a college football season in 2020 with Vols Wire.

“I think there are some issues with contact sports that need to be addressed,” Adalja said.

Issues center around the next 3-4 weeks in which Schaffner discussed being a period around the country — and not evenly distributed — of seeing “a surge in cases coming to medical care.”

“It is important to know we are not going to see one peak,” Adalja said. “We are going to see distinct peaks in different cities because this is not spreading homogeneously. You can think about seeing a peak in New York City in the coming days to weeks, but there are other cities in the country which really do not have that type of trajectory.

“I do not think you will see one peak for the country, but I do think we will have a lot of information as New York City progresses through its outbreak.”

Schaffner can see the coronavirus pandemic start to diminish during the summer with warm weather, but he also views COVID-19 with the capability of returning during the fall and winter.

Adalja anticipates COVID-19 returning also.

“I fully anticipate that this will be back in the fall season just like other coronaviruses and other respiratory viruses that have winter season dominance,” he said. “We know that other coronaviruses that cause about 25 percent of our common colds do exhibit the seasonal cyclicality where they peak in the winter and spring, and then decrease their transmission during the summer. I do think that viruses in the same family tend to behave similarly, we can expect some diminishment of transmission as the Northern Hemisphere enters the summer, but remember the Southern Hemisphere will be entering winter at that time, so we may see increase intensity of transmission in places like Australia.

“I do not think it will be completely gone because I do think there is still a lot of population that are susceptible. A large swath of the population is susceptible, so it may not completely diminish the transmission and maybe able to overcome environmental conditions because there are so many susceptible individuals still in the population.”

With a return of the coronavirus in the fall and winter expected, the college football season taking place is uncertain. Both Adalja and Schaffner will provide the NCAA recommendations for the well-being of student-athletes, coaches, trainers, fans and all individuals that could face from July until January throughout the duration of fall training camp to the national championship game.

“I do think think the contact sports do pose a particular risk to the players if somebody is affected,” Adalja said. “Maybe with extensive testing to see if players are already exposed and immune, that could be one way to salvage some element of a season. Having individuals playing, that are already immune, and they cannot transmit it to others — I do not know if that is something that can be feasible. It might be unreasonable for teams to screen all of their players to see if they are all immune to this — and not if they have just been affected — it is if they already have been affected and recovers then I think it is a different story.

“I do think that mass gatherings will likely be something that will be risky in September and we have to modify certain college and professional sports if they are going to continue. Minimizing the mass gathering element of them and they maybe played without fans, for example like we have seen happen earlier in this pandemic.”

The question that also hovers over the sport is how long will the coronavirus pandemic pose a problem for football — could it be a year from now?

“For something like that you really have to think about a vaccine,” Adalja said. “Is there some kind of preventative measure to make it safe, and I think that is what we are holding out for in something like football, in that kind of a manner. I think that is probably the same for a lot of contact sports.

“Things are evolving and I think that if you are able to say if everyone was immune already, because they all got infected, then I do not think it is that much of an issue, but I do not think we will see that level of infection that you can randomly pick football players and say that they are all going to be immune and safe from it. I do think that we are going to be probably having modifications to these types of sports until a vaccine is available.”

Playing 2020 football season ‘under intense discussion’ by coronavirus NCAA advisory panel

2020 football season ‘under intense discussion’ by NCAA advisory panel.

NASHVILLE — The sports world is on halt due to the coronavirus pandemic.

With spring sports canceled and on and off-campus football recruiting not occurring until at least April 15, it remains unclear when the sports world will resume.

The United States is in the first phase of flattening the curve of the coronavirus outbreak with citizens practicing social distancing and in self-quarantine at their residence.

Dr. William Schaffner, M.D., and Professor, Preventive Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, discussed with Vols Wire the reality if the college football season can be played in 2020.

“I can tell you, it is a subject that is under intense discussion,” Schaffner said. “In fact, there is question of how much recruiting should go on, whether there should be summer practices and all of those issues. The NCAA advisory panel on the coronavirus is discussing those issues as we speak.”

Schaffner is on the NCAA coronavirus advisory panel and provided insight of how a process to determine if playing a college football season in 2020 is feasible.

Feasibility includes if student-athletes are physically capable to play. Being able to play is dependent on when and if practices can take place and an unknown of when gyms could re-open to train and workout in.

The uncertainty provides a notion that the reality of having the 2020 college football season is far from certain.

“There are a whole series of issues like that causing coaches and others a fair amount of concern, as you can imagine,” Schaffner said. “Gyms are closed, players cannot even do conventional strength training in many institutions. They cannot gather together to practice, which a lot of people do informally and formally.

“I know we are in unprecedented times, and the times that the coronavirus have created will create ripple effects that will go beyond of what they have already done to sports.”

Schaffner views the the next 3-4 weeks as a period that will show an increase in cases within the pandemic.

“I do believe that the next 3-4 weeks are going to be a period in which — around the country and not evenly distributed — we are going to see a surge in cases coming to medical care,” he said.

Will the coronavirus pandemic start to diminish during the summer with warm weather — and could it come back in the fall and winter?

“My answers to both questions are a gentle yes,” Schaffner said. “This is a novel coronavirus, but the human coronaviruses that cause common colds, strains that do that and they are rather seasonal and not as dramatically seasonal as influenza is because the flu basically disappears during the summer unless you look really, really hard for it, but for all intensive purposes it is gone.

“The human coronaviruses do have a seasonal prominence, but they do not go away as completely in the summer as does influenza. This is a novel virus and who knows what it is going to do and I do not know whether this novel virus has read the text book and knows what it is supposed to do, so it may do something a little different. I do think it will not disappear completely and I think it is likely that during this next winter we will kind of have a double-barreled respiratory virus season with influenza viruses, along with the coronavirus, in a much diminished form.”

The process to determine if schools can field a team and play football this fall are on going with a series of recommendations being provided to the board of the NCAA from the panel. The board will eventually make a final decision with the help of receptive notions that have been sent to them by the panel.

“The panel was established around six weeks ago,” Schaffner said. “It was established to help the NCAA deal with the coronavirus situation. It is a wonderful committee and people really listen to each other. Dr. Brian Hainline is the Chief Medical Officer of the NCAA. He is an absolutely wonderful moderator and is thoughtful and careful. We talk about the medical, virological and public health issues. The financial aspect does not even enter the discussion.

“It is a high-level and professional discussion aimed at doing the best for everyone and not just the athletes. Everyone who is involved in the NCAA sports, whether it is coaches, people that work in arenas, hot dog vendors, spectators, it is a huge phenomenon when you think about it and we are in charge to think about the public health aspect and that is it. The board takes care of the other issues. These issues are well known and are being discussed by the NCAA panel. The panel will be making recommendations in fairly short order to the NCAA. There are panel members that have close associations with coaches across the country.”

All options are being discussed for the health and well-being of everyone involved for the ability of schools to field teams again.

Schaffner also discussed the option of college football playing in the spring of 2021 if schools do not compete this fall.

“That question has all kinds of ramifications because there is a terrific amount of preparatory work that goes on in training,” he said. “Those individuals, to get physically fit, and even more important as a team so that you are blended together, to work together appropriately, and by at large football is an outdoor sport. You have winter weather to contend with.

“There are things about sports organizations and rules about when teams can practice together, how much time they can practice together and all of that designed to protect the athlete. It is a question that is simply stated, but implies something very complicated.”