Is an NFL season possible during the COVID-19 pandemic? We asked epidemiology experts to find out

Power brokers for the ‘power five’ conferences are discussing this week whether the 2020 football season for college should be canceled due to the health and safety challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic.

So what about the NFL, which plans to start its season in a month?

A majority of NFL teams will begin training camp practices this week on their facilities with the hope that players and coaches will not contract the highly contagious coronavirus, which could limit the ability to play games and possibly the season.

The Cowboys will perform their first practice on Friday at The Star in Frisco.

“This season will undoubtedly present new and additional challenges,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement last month. “But we aim to play a safe and complete 2020 season, culminating in the Super Bowl.”

Will the safety measures of the teams approved by the union and the health officials work? Several epidemiologists have doubts, calling what the NFL is doing with high-risk behavior.

“I find it difficult,” said Dr. Zachary Binney, an epidemiologist at Oxford College or Emory University. ‘So tackling football is a sport. I do not think there is any way you can reliably transfer in football teams or over football teams in a game. That the focus should really be on preventing a case on the field in the first place, and that’s what the NFL is trying to spend a lot of its time on, and rightly so. “

NFL teams test players on a daily basis and divide players into socially remote areas of amenities. The Cowboys require players to wear wristbands in the facility that follow their stay and beep when they are 6 feet from someone else.

Players, coaches, administrators and some staff must undergo a facial scan and take two temperature readings before entering the Frisco facility.

Outside of The Star, players and coaches are asked to avoid large crowds, including attending certain sporting events, to perform good hygiene by washing hands with soap and water and, of course, wearing a mask.

Is this enough?

“It will be absolutely interesting because I would place football in a high-risk category,” said Diana Cervantes, an epidemiologist at the University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort Worth. ‘But I saw them try to set opt-outs of the season and implement fines to make sure people wear their masks and do not engage in high-risk behaviors. The greater risk is likely to come from the field in that setting. They go to clubs and go out in groups and those kinds of things, it will be interesting. Many questions that are still pending will make it very challenging. ‘

Twenty-seven NFL players opted out of the 2020 season due to concerns about coronavirus, including three Cowboys. The New England Patriots led the NFL with eight players who dropped out. Approaching Marcus Cannon, a TCU product, was among the Patriots to decide they will not play this season.

The non-play option allows the remaining players to follow protocols followed by the NFL and approved by state and local governments.

On July 17, the NFL sent a 43-page document to the Texas Department of State Health Services detailing the protocols the Dallas Cowboys and Houston Texans promised to follow. The state approved the league’s request to open training camps in late July.

Now comes the hard part of making sure players stay safe. According to the John Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering, Texas had the third most coronavirus cases on Monday afternoon at 504,1114 with 9,170 deaths. Collin County, home of the Cowboys practice facility, reported 740 cases per 100,000 residents.

Keeping the numbers and challenges of players safe without the comfort of a quarantine bubble environment – the approach taken by the NBA and NHL to bring those sports back – is a daunting task.

Not even a week after the start of his regular season of 60 games, Miami Marlins and St. Louis. Louis Cardinals of Major League Baseball had postponed games due to positive testing among players. On Sunday, Cleveland Indians pitcher Zach Plesac wrote team and MLB COVID-19 protocols as he left the team hotel to socialize with friends in Chicago.

“But football presents some unique challenges relative to baseball,” Binney said. “Just comparing the MLB, more people are involved in a football match, more opportunities for the virus to enter, both in games and in practice. That there are more chances for the virus to spread when it gets there. That it will be a challenge, especially in the US at the moment, where we have many cases of the virus. “

When Steven S. Coughlin, a professor of epidemiology at Augusta University, was asked what worried him about the NFL, he said via email: “It’s a contact sport with players in close contact.”

The NFL has presented players with helmet prototypes with face shields that come down on the can as one of the measures for equipment to protect players.

It has met with mixed results.

“I have to breathe when I play,” said Cowboys linebacker Leighton Vander Esch. ‘And it’s one thing to have an eye shield, but to have that other part on your helmet, some guys can wear it or something, but I probably will not do it. We sweat, we sweat and do all that. I do not think we can get around it by just carrying a small shield on us. “

Texans defensive end JJ Watt is also against wearing a face shield.

“You put a fishbowl on your head and you try to run for three hours and hit an adult man, it will not go too well,” Watt said in a conference call with Houston reporters. ‘I do not think that would be too good for me either. That no, as long as it is optional, I will not wear it. ”

And even if players use the shields, there are no guarantees that it will prevent anyone from getting the virus.

“The truth is, we do not know how much that will still help,” Binney said. ‘I know the face shields have been carefully made by some people at the NFL that I really like and trust. But there are holes in them, and I know they are designed to prevent direct transfer of drops from person to person. But you still spend a lot of time, very close together. You touch each other, the face shields are not even instructed, so only some players will wear them. “

That the NFL season will be completed without any problems?

Will a player like another coach alongside the Eagles’ Doug Pederson test positive for the virus this season?

Will the NFL be forced to suspend or cancel games if there is a major outbreak?

The next four weeks will provide answers to these questions.

“Any time you have an open population outside the bubble,” Cervantes said, “you will increase risk.”

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