Dr. Anthony Fauci, a leading member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, provided a bleak prediction regarding the upcoming NFL season.
Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on Thursday he believes this season likely won’t happen without extreme quarantine precautions, according to CNN.
“Unless players are essentially in a bubble — insulated from the community and they are tested nearly every day — it would be very hard to see how football is able to be played this fall. If there is a second wave, which is certainly a possibility and which would be complicated by the predictable flu season, football may not happen this year,” he said.
The NFL could follow other leagues who have proposed a bubble-like model in which the players and coaches are relegated to one hub where all the games are played and teams are required to live, separated from the community. Other professional sports leagues are considering similar ideas. The NBA, for instance, is looking to restart its season by moving all 22 teams to the Disney World campus in Orlando, Florida.
The NFL has already released the schedule for the 2020 season, although it’s unclear if games will actually be played.
When asked how some players recently testing positive for the coronavirus will effect the league’s strategy moving forward, Commissioner Roger Goodell told ESPN on Monday, “We expect we are going to have positive tests. That is part of the increased testing that we will be going through and that is something that we just want to make sure that our protocols are working and to date. We are seeing very positive reactions in the sense that we are making sure we respond quickly, protect the personnel that may be impacted by that and others that may be in contact with them.”
