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College football is back. For many, it’s a welcome return from a fall tradition, but for some, the scenes of tens of thousands of fans crammed into stadiums – all against the backdrop of a pandemic that still rages across the country. countries – fuel more anxiety than euphoria.
With the delta variant of the coronavirus still causing an increase in the number of new cases, hospitalizations and deaths in parts of the United States, experts say these big events and the huge crowds they draw can come at a bad time , even if they occur outdoors, where the risk of infection is usually minimized.
It’s part of what some researchers are calling a frustrating “gray area” more than a year and a half after the start of the pandemic. There is no simple answer to the risk of a mass gathering like an outdoor college football game. A variety of factors play into the level of risk: local infection rates, whether a stage requires vaccination or proof of a negative test, and even what people do before and after the game.
In one of those games, the University of Wisconsin’s home opener against Penn State, no proof of vaccination or negative test was required. Masks were mandatory indoors but only “strongly encouraged” in outdoor areas. Over 76,000 people attended. The Madison, Wisconsin metropolitan area, home to more than 660,000 people, has seen a steady increase in cases since mid-July and a positive test rate of 3.4%, according to Public Health Madison and Dane County.
The challenge of determining the risk of these events is compounded by the constant challenges in tracking cases. While experts still maintain that indoor transmission is much more common, being outdoors does not eliminate the risk.
“Being outside offers protection in the sense that there is more air flowing,” said Dr. Bruce Y. Lee, professor of health policy and management at the City University of New York. “But if you’re around a lot of people for a few hours, it’s not like the wind could just magically sweep away the whole virus.”
This concern is even more pressing given the supercharged drivability of the Delta variant. In an interview on MSNBC, Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, expressed alarm at the size of the crowd at recent college football games.
“People would like to say that we are done with Covid, but Covid is not done with us,” Fauci told MSNBC’s Joy Reid.
While research is still ongoing, studies have shown that people infected with the delta variant have more virus in their system than previous strains, and people infected with delta may shed more virus particles when they cough, sneeze or speak.
These two factors likely explain why the delta variant is believed to be more than twice as transmissible as the original strain of the coronavirus, said Jamie Lloyd-Smith, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UCLA.
“With this variant, it probably takes less virus entering your airways to get infected, especially if you aren’t vaccinated,” Lloyd-Smith said. “And if you’re at a game and a super spreader is two-seat, that person could be releasing more virus than what was spreading a year ago.”
Still, the risk of mass gatherings at this point in the pandemic is difficult to assess, he said. Much depends on the location and the specific situation on the ground, including the prevalence of the virus in communities, the proportion of the population vaccinated and other mitigation measures or rules in place.
Some schools, including Louisiana State University and the University of Oregon, require fans 12 and older to provide proof of vaccination or a recent negative test to attend games. Elsewhere, there are fewer restrictions.
Penn State anticipates full capacity crowds at football games this fall, and the school’s athletic director said there are no plans to require fans to show proof of vaccination or a negative test. The University of Alabama and Auburn University have also not imposed screening requirements for fans, although state health officials have partnered with colleges to offer clinics. vaccination on site.
While being outdoors is generally less risky than in cramped indoor environments, people attending games and other big events tend to move in between. Often there are also other activities associated with the main event where people gather and provide opportunities for the virus to spread.
“The risk is not just the football game or the music festival, but what people do before, during and after,” said Dr. Cameron Wolfe, associate professor of medicine at Duke University.
This is in part what makes it difficult to know whether large events – such as concerts, sporting events, and festivals – lead to subsequent spikes in cases.
Lollapalooza, a four-day music festival held in Chicago in late July, was linked to 203 cases of Covid-19, but the city’s health department said a number of infections were expected among the estimated 385 000 attendees and added that the uptick was “no sign” of a superspreader event. Lollapalooza asked participants to show proof of vaccination or a negative Covid test.
In August, more than 100 infections in five states were traced to the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota, where hundreds of thousands descended for the annual event in a state that has imposed few restrictions throughout. throughout the pandemic. The same event last year was believed to have contributed, in part, to a wave of infections in the Upper Midwest.
Yet determining how many cases stem from a single event is an imprecise science without exhaustive contact tracing and genetic sequencing.
“It’s hard to tie clusters of cases that you might not see until three to six days later with a trigger event,” Wolfe said. “It’s not that transmission doesn’t happen; it’s just hard to prove without a lot of manpower and lab work.”
While Wolfe has expressed his concerns about large gatherings at this point in the pandemic, he said college sports, music festivals and other big events could be conducted in a safe and responsible manner.
One way could be to require proof of vaccination or a negative Covid test, he said. Seating limits could also be imposed, along with other mitigating measures such as the requirement for masks and the greater distribution of people in stadiums.
“All of these things fade away at risk,” Lloyd-Smith said. “It makes it drop by degrees and just lowers the temperature overall.”
When done right, these events could provide a model for public health measures in the wider community, Wolfe said.
“It could be a good microcosm of how parts of society can try to get back on their feet,” he said. “You can run a college campus safely and be safe. You can open businesses and make them safe. We have to find a way for people to be responsible for how they manage their risk, because this will all be part of our challenge of learning to live with Covid. “
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