The story behind the Heat’s COVID-19-sniffing dogs, and how the process will work
The Miami Heat began building a plan for the return of fans months ago.
The COVID-19 pandemic created decisions the Heat had never faced before, but the complex process began with one overarching question: What’s the safest, yet most practical, way fans can be welcomed back into AmericanAirlines Arena?
Using a PCR test or a rapid antigen test to screen every person entering the downtown Miami arena would be ideal, but it’s not a viable option for hundreds and thousands of fans because of the time it takes for results to come back. There were also out-of-the-box solutions considered like a COVID-19 breath test that has been used in Israel and can detect the virus within 30 seconds, but there was not yet enough reliable data behind this option.
So, the Heat turned to another innovative idea: COVID-19-sniffing dogs.
“Somewhere along the line, we looked at COVID-detecting dogs,” said Matthew Jafarian, the Heat’s executive vice president for business strategy. “It was on our radar, but we weren’t seriously considering it until we saw all of the deployments happening globally. I think some time last summer, it was just the Finnish airport and a group out of France. Then they just started multiplying. You saw dog deployment worldwide.”
The Heat will use COVID-19-sniffing dogs to screen fans, employees and others before entering AmericanAirlines Arena, becoming the first NBA team to try this approach. Everybody who isn’t covered by the league’s testing policy will need to be screened by the dogs.
While the dogs have been used on Heat employees since late last year, Thursday will mark the first time they will be used to detect COVID-19 on more than 1,000 people entering AmericanAirlines Arena. The Heat will allow fewer than 2,000 season-ticket holders — about 10 percent of the arena’s usual capacity — attend home games starting with Thursday’s matchup against the Los Angeles Clippers.
“We’re familiar with detection dogs,” Jafarian said. “We’ve had detection dogs in our arena for years to detect explosives. We know they’ve been used in mission critical situations with the police and the military for decades. So it wasn’t a completely new concept to us.”
COVID-19-sniffing dogs have already been deployed at airports in Chile, Finland and the United Arab Emirates.
The results have been promising so far, with one study conducted in July by BioMed Central finding that individuals with COVID-19 were accurately detected by the trained dogs 82.6 percent of the time and those who the dogs signaled were infected ended up then testing positive for the virus 96 percent of the time. The study was done with eight COVID-19-detection dogs included 1,012 randomized samples.
“What we’ve gleaned from the years of use of these types of dogs for detection of like Parkinson’s [disease], malaria and cancer is that they can be pretty darn good and obviously be a lot faster and a lot more acceptable to the public,” said Dr. Anthony Harris, who is the Chief Innovation Officer and Associate Medical Director for WorkCare. “So it’s pretty promising that this could be a viable option at scale, but we still need to have more research at a larger value than 1,000 samples in the case of the study.”
At Heat games, groups of about 10 to 15 fans will stand on socially distanced dots placed on the floor to form a line outside the AmericanAirlines Arena entrance. The dogs will then walk past the line.
“All you do is just have your hand by your side and the dog takes around one or two seconds, if even, to see if they detect anything on you,” Jafarian said.
If the dog keeps going, the fan is cleared. But if the dog sits next to an individual, that’s a signal it detects COVID-19 and the fan and their group will not be allowed to enter the arena.
“We’ll ask that person and their entire group, whoever they came with, [to step aside] because they may have been in the same car together,” Jafarian said. “We just want to be super, super conservative about this and we’ll ask them to step aside. We’ll give them some information on what they should do next.”
At the Heat’s discretion, those fans will be eligible for either a refund, a credit, or will be offered tickets of equal value to a future game if the ticket was purchased directly from the team or Ticketmaster.com.
If a fan is allergic to or afraid of dogs, the Heat will instead offer them a rapid antigen test as a way to skip the dog screening. Those tests are expected to produce results in less than 45 minutes.
As for those who have already received the COVID-19 vaccine, that’s not expected to confuse the dogs because they have been specifically trained to identify active virus.
“Other entities like those in travel, like airlines, they’re looking at the idea of a vaccine passport, where you verify somebody’s identity and you verify that they’ve been vaccinated,” Jafarian said. “We’re not interested in getting involved with that. All we care about is does somebody have active coronavirus when they try to walk into the building, so we do expect to have these dogs in place for a while.”
The Heat will begin welcoming fans back into AmericanAirlines Arena with four COVID-19-sniffing dogs. The plan, depending on the course of the pandemic, is to ramp up to 10 dogs when the amount of fans allowed to attend home games eventually increases to about 3,000 by the end of February.
Even after fans are cleared by the dogs to enter the arena, there will still be strict COVID-19 health and safety guidelines to follow.
A few of those guidelines for Heat home games: There’s a mandatory health screening questionnaire. Isolation rooms will be available throughout the arena for those who become sick or don’t feel well during the game. All fans over the age of 2 must wear a mask completely covering their mouth and noise while inside the arena unless consuming a drink in designated areas where it’s permitted. Drinks (soda and water only) will be available for purchase, but may not be consumed in the arena bowl or concourses. No food will be sold at this time.
“One of the things that we want to emphasize is that once you’re inside the arena, there are still plenty of COVID safety protocols,” Jafarian said. “The dogs are not in lieu of anything.”
This Heat is currently planning to host a limited capacity at AmericanAirlines Arena for six consecutive upcoming home games — Thursday vs. Clippers, Saturday vs. Sacramento Kings, Monday vs. Charlotte Hornets, Feb. 3 vs. Washington Wizards, Feb. 5 vs. Wizards and Feb. 9 vs. New York Knicks.
“Thursday is a really important milestone,” Jafarian said. “It will be roughly 10 and a half months since the Charlotte game on March 11 (the last time the Heat allowed fans inside AmericanAirlines Arena). Ten and a half months since one of the busiest buildings in the world has let in fans. We’re excited to do that in a really safe way, but we’re not rushing into this. ... We’re moving slowly. We want to make sure we get this right. Health and safety is the No. 1 priority.”
For more information on what to expect at AmericanAirlines Arena this season, visit Heat.com/FanSafety.
TIME CHANGE
With Clippers stars Kawhi Leonard and Paul George in the NBA’s health and safety protocols, TNT dropped Thursday’s game between the Clippers and Heat and replaced it with a matchup between the Golden State Warriors and Phoenix Suns.
Fox Sports Sun picked up Thursday’s Heat-Clippers game, which will now start at 8 p.m. instead of its previously scheduled time of 7 p.m.
This story was originally published January 27, 2021 at 9:11 AM.
