Superspreader Sunday? How the National Football League holds the Super Bowl during a pandemic

Superspreader Sunday? How the National Football League holds the Super Bowl during a pandemic

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In the spring, no one was sure what a national football league would look like, let alone whether its championship would continue. The virus shuffled schedules and forced players who tested positive to sit out, but not a single game was canceled. Now only one remains: Super Bowl LV.

It comes just as health officials are begging Americans to help them prevent the spread of new strains of the coronavirus. Concerns are growing that Super Bowl parties could lead to another increase in infections this Sunday. To avoid a superspreader event, the way the game is played, attended, presented and watched will look very different.
About 25,000 fans – including 7,500 health workers – will descend on Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida, to see the Kansas City Chiefs and Tampa Bay Buccaneers take on the fight over the weekend. But instead of foam fingers, they wear free PVB on arrival, including masks. “We want our fans to be safe,” NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said. “They have to be smart. They have to wear their personal protection.”
Delivering a safe rest time show was also a monumental task for British director Hamish Hamilton, who, according to the pandemic, “placed a very different set of parameters around the production.” It is, after all, an event for which a variety of artists on stage were involved with little social distance.
But even with the most vigilant rules, the coronavirus can still derail the best plans. The Chiefs had a particularly nerve-wracking Covid-19 scare this week when they learned that a barber had tested positive for the team. The main center for backup, Daniel Kilgore, was cut in the chair when the results came, reports ESPN. A number of Chiefs players, including full-back Patrick Mahomes, cut in line on Sunday.

In the January 24-30 Covid Monitoring Test results presented by the NFL and the NFL Players Association on Tuesday, there were no new confirmed positive tests among players and one new positive among other staff.

YOU ASKED. WE ANSWER.

Q: Is there anything I can do to prepare for my Covid-19 vaccination?

A: As more people around the world gain access to the coronavirus vaccines, there are still many questions. Will it work? Will there be side effects? Do I need to rest after receiving the vaccine? Can I hang out with my friends and family now?

We spoke with CNN’s medical analyst, dr. Leana Wen, talks for guidance on how to take care of ourselves and our loved ones as more people are vaccinated.
Send your questions here. Are you a health worker fighting Covid-19? Send us a message on WhatsApp about the challenges you face: +1 347-322-0415.

WHAT IS IMPORTANT TODAY

A new single-dose vaccine could speed up vaccination efforts

Johnson & Johnson applied to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday for emergency permission for its single-dose Covid-19 vaccine, which will give it potential distribution in March.

The FDA scheduled a meeting of its independent advisory panel on February 26, which will vote on whether the vaccine should be approved, giving the group three weeks to review relevant data.

Last week, Johnson & Johnson released encouraging results from its late-stage clinical trial. The vaccine has been shown to be 85% effective in preventing hospitalization and deaths in all three regions where it has been tested – the United States, Latin America and South Africa. But the results have a significant caveat: their effectiveness against moderate and severe diseases has ranged from 72% in the US to 57% in South Africa, where a highly contagious variant causes infections.

If approved, Johnson & Johnson will supply a third vaccine to the US market. The delivery of one dose, which does not require special handling, will also give flexibility and speed to the vaccination efforts.

Vaccine nationalism leaves an entire continent empty-handed

African countries are left behind in the race for Covid-19 vaccines, as richer countries accumulate doses, prioritizing their own population and creating an unequal playing field. As of February 3, vaccines were being implemented in at least 68 countries and territories worldwide – only four in Africa.

Most African countries suffered fewer deaths last year due to the first wave of the virus compared to other parts of the world. But the numbers are rising now, especially in the southern region where a more virulent variant of the coronavirus causes infections, write Eoin McSweeney and Nyasha Shingono.

In a scramble to secure doses, South Africa, the country worst affected on the continent, had to be forced to buy the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine from the Serum Institute of India at almost double the price of other rich countries paid – $ 5.25 per dose, according to Reuters. The difference in access and price has caused great anger among leaders in Africa, including South Africa’s president and president of the African Union, Cyril Ramaphosa, who has downplayed Western countries because they promote a ‘vaccine nationalism’ that countries in most distress, marginalize.

These frontline health workers desperately want vaccines. They can not get it

Dr. Alfonso Velandia starts each hospital shift by counting his troops in the fight against the coronavirus. The 46-year-old emergency specialist manages intensive care units at the cardiovascular hospital in Soacha, a suburb of the Colombian capital Bogotá. Since the pandemic began, he has said he sees the number of health workers under his watch declining, even as the hospital expands its ICU to confront a relentless second-wave of cases.

Velandia looks with frustration at statistics on the distribution of vaccines in Europe and North America, where hundreds of thousands of frontline health workers have already been vaccinated against the deadly virus. “I had a meeting recently, and my team was like ‘We can no longer hold on’ … we need the vaccine now!” he told CNN.

But like many countries in the developing world, Colombia will not receive a single dose of vaccine, reports Radina Gigova and Stefano Pozzebon.

ON OUR RADAR

  • An influential model predicts more than 630,000 Covid-19 deaths in the U.S. by June 1st.
  • President Joe Biden hopes to evoke a proposal from the Trump administration to post face masks to every American.
  • Travelers from a so-called ‘red list’ of countries to the UK will have to quarantine in a hotel for ten days from 15 February.
  • Australia will increase incoming passenger borders, allowing more than 6,300 residents a week to return to the country.
  • A 30,000-member Facebook group is helping Hong Kong navigate a strict 21-day hotel quarantine.

BO-WENK

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released some tips on how to safely navigate Super Bowl celebrations. Their best advice – not surprisingly – is to watch the game at home with the people you live with. If you insist on having a small watch festival, the CDC says you should host it outdoors and make sure everyone has a mask. The guidelines recommend that you limit alcohol use, as alcohol makes you less likely to follow Covid-19 safety precautions.

Read an overview of all their advice here.

TODAY’S PODCAST

“I think the biggest thing we’ve learned – which is not shocking to those in the medical profession – is universal masking. It’s the most effective strategy we have.” – NFL Chief Medical Officer Dr. Allen Sills

Super Bowl LV takes place this weekend and it’s not your usual championship game. The CDC and the NFL worked together to not only study how the league played through a pandemic, but also how the general public could benefit from the lessons they learned. Dr Sills tells CNN’s chief medical correspondent dr. Sanjay Gupta why he thinks the 2020-21 season was worth the risk. Listen now.

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