Major League Baseball ‘s plans to revive the 2020 season took only about a week to bump into enormous problems.
At least four teams — the Oakland A’s, Washington Nationals, San Francisco Giants, and Houston Astros — temporarily closed this week’s training camps just because some players hadn’t been tested and hadn’t been given results on time over the weekend of July 4th. Atlanta Braves player Freddie Freeman has screened the coronavirus positively and is sick in bed. At least three among his team-mates were also tested positive. An increasing number of players had also chosen to opt-out of playing today, such as two Atlanta veterans, and others could follow very soon.
According to HuffPost, many leagues have faced challenges of their own. The other week, FC Dallas from Major League Soccer dropped out of a team-wide tournament that started this week after 10 members and a staff member tested positive within the MLS bubble in Florida, Orlando. Nashville FC has also postponed Wednesday’s scheduled match and is reportedly to back out of the event ever since five players tested positive.
In the meantime, the growing number of cases across Florida has raised questions about NBA (www.nba.com)and WNBA ‘s plans to revive play at Disney’s Stadium in Orlando and IMG Academy in Bradenton, however, in their very own bubble conditions. The NFL season is not set to start after September however the players association of its league has already been concerned about their return plans prior to the start of that same training camp later in the month. NFL president of the union J.C. This week, Tretter posted clearly “appears to believe that the virus will turn to football.”
With hundreds of millions in revenue at risk, professional sports leagues spent several months hashing out plans to restart or continue seasons that the epidemic had halted. And they’re now grappling with the reality of America’s inadequate response to the outbreak, which has led to national increases in the number of infections and shortage of medical supplies and testing in several states, including those home to pro sports franchises.
This has prompted public health specialists and a growing number of players to start questioning once again whether sports leagues should attempt to return.
Health professionals are hesitant to give a conclusive response. Yet their concerns that leagues clearly can’t meet the obstacles raised by the current outbreak are much stronger than they had been two months ago when the franchises began to figure out their plans.
“Resuming pro sports is a high-risk occurrence right now,” stated Summer Johnson McGee, the dean of the University of New Haven in Connecticut’s School of Health Sciences. “The arrangements were put in motion with the best intentions and expectations that we will be at a national position where such activities could be resumed. And what we have found is that we certainly aren’t there, though perhaps in a handful of nations.
If leagues are unable to do many tests and also get their results back on time, I’m not quite certain how they can relaunch. Stated Zachary Binney, the epidemiologist at the Emory University.
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