Infectious disease expert explains why testing will be key to having football this season
By SDS Staff
Published:
We all want to see football played in the fall but the key to having the sport played relies on the availability of testing for the coronavirus, says Dr. Anthony Fauci.
In a recent interview with Peter King of NBC Sports, Fauci — the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force — admits that playing football is an activity that could certainly be an avenue for the coronavirus to easily spread in the fall.
“Sweat does not do it,” Fauci said. “This is a respiratory virus, so it’s going to be spread by shedding virus. The problem with virus shedding is that if I have it in my nasal pharynx, and it sheds and I wipe my hand against my nose—now it’s on my hand. You see, then I touch my chest or my thigh, then it’s on my chest or my thigh for at least a few hours. Sweat as such won’t transmit it. But if people are in such close contact as football players are on every single play, then that’s the perfect set up for spreading. I would think that if there is an infected football player on the field—a middle linebacker, a tackle, whoever it is it—as soon as they hit the next guy, the chances are that they will be shedding virus all over that person.
While those comments are certainly troubling to a degree, Dr. Fauci also stated that as long as there is enough testing in the fall, the probability of spreading the virus can be diminished “dramatically” in the fall.
“If I test today, and I’m negative, you don’t know if I got exposed tomorrow . . . There’s no guarantee that you’re going to get exposed and be positive the next day. To give you an example, you’re probably reading in the newspapers that there’s an infection in the White House. I was exposed to that person. So I immediately got tested. I am negative. So, I’m negative yesterday. I don’t know if I’m going to be negative Monday. Understand? It’s almost an impossible situation. To be 100 percent sure, you’ve got to test every day. But that’s not practical and that’s never going to happen. But you can diminish dramatically by testing everybody Saturday night, Sunday morning, and say OK, only negative players play.”
Based on those comments, we all should hope that testing continues to trend in the direction it has in recent days and weeks as many more will be needed once the football season rolls around.
Saturday Down South reports and comments on the news around the Southeastern Conference as well as larger college football topics.
