The NFL giant COVID-19 experiment ends Sunday with the unlikely feat of a one-time Super Bowl, which limits a season with no games canceled.
Why it’s important: The season suggests that with the right resources, security measures, and cooperation (all of which have been lacking in the overall U.S. response), life can continue during the pandemic without the uncontrolled spread of the virus.
The big picture: The NFL decided at first that it would not require its thousands of players, coaches and other staff members to live in a “bubble,” as other sports leagues had done.
- However, the league expanded the basic public health concepts of social distancing, testing, contact tracking, and isolation across the 32 teams. To prevent the spread, officers were prepared to postpone games or bench players.
Jeff Miller, the NFL’s executive vice president of communications, public affairs and politics told Axios, “The approach we took was to appreciate that there was an expectation that people would get COVID, and what we could do to prevent it from spreading to our facilities “.
- “Our protocols were based on this premise: living in our 32 communities during a pandemic was a risk, but we wanted to make sure we did our best to prevent” the spread of the virus.
Between lines: Some of the NFL’s findings were published by the CDC, including what the league learned about the transmission of the virus.
- The most important changes the league had to make over time were related to “our evolution of what was a high-risk contact,” Miller said.
The league discovered it risky contacts with an infected person were not limited to interactions of 15 minutes to less than 6 feet. Instead, the definition became more complex, taking into account time, distance, ventilation, and the use of masks.
- “All four of these factors had an interaction within them, which was, in our experience, much more complicated than six feet and 15 minutes,” Miller said.
The summary: “We never saw the virus transmitted through the fighting line,” Miller said, even when players who later tested positive participated in the game.
- The league was able to confirm that this was the case through genetic sequencing.
Deepen: Super Bowl preview