If pro sports leagues are the puck, COVID-19 is the stick, slapping them all over the place. Dozens of players from NHL, NBA, and NFL are currently sidelined because they’ve tested positive for the coronavirus.
“What’s happening now over the past couple of years is unprecedented,” said Miami Herald sports columnist Greg Cote.
The Florida Panthers currently have seven players out with Covid. The Miami Dolphins also have five players out of action, and the Miami Heat’s Caleb Martin is sidelined. He tested positive immediately after the best game of his career.
“The odds of us having another spike in cases are very high,” said Florida International University infectious disease expert, Dr. Aileen Marty, referring to the onset of the omicron variant.
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Most pro athletes, including Martin, are vaccinated. NBC 6 asked Dr. Marty what the danger is for fully-vaccinated athletes if they get a breakthrough omicron infection.
"Most likely it’s gonna be mild symptoms unless they have some kind of underlying condition that’s not affecting their athletics,” she said.
Cote was asked if the protocols should be adjusted to the current vaccinated athlete reality.
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“I think they might be over time, I think that’s where sports leagues are probably gonna move,” the veteran columnist responded. “I don’t think if you’re a sports league you can be faulted too much for being overly cautious and you know it may cause a game to be postponed and fans are throwing up their arms going 'wow, this is ridiculous, why did we have to postpone the game?' But again, I think if you’re a league, you want to be safe first, and put up with whatever criticism comes.”
Dr. Marty said the bigger worry is not the players themselves, but asymptomatic athletes passing Covid on to other people, because omicron makes breakthrough infections more likely.
“That’s exactly right because they could be highly contagious and when they drop their guard, when they they go to mom’s for dinner, next thing you know you’ve got susceptible people,” Dr. Marty said.
Omicron, Dr. Marty said, is more infectious but not necessarily more dangerous than other versions of the Covid virus. She said the NFL, NBA, and the NHL are role models.
“If all of society were handling this pandemic the way the athletic associations have, we would not have more than 800,000 dead Americans,” Dr. Marty said.
On Thursday afternoon, the NFL announced changes to its Covid protocols, saying it would alter the requirements for players to come back after testing positive, hopefully allowing them to get back on the field sooner. There was no word from the other leagues about changes to their policies.
