Experts believe the 49ers Super Bowl loss helped coronavirus from further spreading
The 49ers really owe Patrick Mahomes.
California medical experts believe their Super Bowl 54 loss likely helped prevent a bigger coronavirus outbreak, according to the Wall Street Journal.
“It may go down in the annals as being a brutal sports loss,” Dr. Bob Wachter, the chair of the University of California San Francisco’s Department of Medicine, told the WSJ, “but one that may have saved lives.”
The city of San Francisco was gearing up for a parade prior to the Chiefs’ 10-point comeback in the game’s final seven minutes. Said championship celebration could have further spread the virus that the New York Times reported has already claimed 725 lives as of Tuesday afternoon.
Only two cases had been reported in Santa Clara County on Super Bowl Sunday. Kansas City, conversely, didn’t have any at the time.
For a virus that primarily spreads through droplets produced when coughing sneezing or even talking, a championship parade would have been the last thing that the Bay Area needed.
“If one person had it and spread it to a number of people at the parade, that could’ve had an impact on the epidemic trajectory,” Carl Bergstrom, a University of Washington biology professor, told the Wall Street Journal.
Between 500,000 to 1.5 million fans flocked to Oakland for the Golden State Warriors’ three championship parades, according to the WSJ’s estimates. The article notes that a similar turnout would have equated to Philadelphia’s untimely parade in 1918 amid the Spanish Flu pandemic. While organized to boost wartime morale, the celebration actually led to thousands of flu-related deaths.
Not copying Philadelphia “spared us from a much worse fate” Wachter told the Wall Street Journal. The day after Kansas City reported its first case, California issued a stay-at-home order on March 19.
California has more than 24,000 reported cases, the fifth-highest total in the country, according to the New York Times.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has previously said that he believes the coronavirus was circulating in South Florida around the time of Super Bowl 54.
