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Are Professional Sports Causing the COVID-19 Spike In Florida?
The inside story on how professional sports are expediting COVID-19 test results
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Friends,
As a third year neurosurgery resident, former NFL player Myron Rolle has been fighting the COVID-19 pandemic for months. Today’s article dives through his background from the NFL to Harvard, and details how he has been called on to tackle the Coronavirus from the front line.
Sports Testing Takes Center Stage
As the COVID-19 global pandemic continues to ravage different parts of the United States (and the world), professional sports leagues like the NBA, MLB, MLS, and soon to be the NFL, have set a plan in motion to return to play. This plan revolves around one common principle: their ability to quickly test athletes for COVID-19.
The NBA is testing players and staff daily, the MLS and MLB are conducting multiple tests per week and the NFL, without a concrete plan in place yet, will surely feature frequent testing when they return.
One month ago, sports' use of those COVID-19 tests, and the lab capacity needed to process them, was thought to be incidental. But now, with the country seeing more than 50,000 new cases of COVID-19 daily and major commercial labs struggling to keep up with high demand, experts now wonder whether the return of multiple sports leagues will put a burden on an increasingly-fragile testing infrastructure (Source). Here is a look at the daily test administered, the positive results, and the rolling 7-day positive average for the US (Source):
What’s the Issue?
With the United States administering close to 750,000 tests a day, the issue isn’t that the leagues are testing so frequently (although essential healthcare workers aren’t even tested daily), but that they are requesting (and getting) the results back within 12 to 24 hours.
BioReference Laboratories, which conducts testing and analysis for the NBA/MLS and also the general public, has been delivering test results back to the NBA in 12 to 15 hours and the MLS in 12 to 24 hours.
The problem? The general public can expect test results within 5-7 days, and in some cases, 10 days or more (Source).
Although BioReference has yet to confirm (or deny), the delay in results from one group to the next can only mean one thing - certain groups, the NBA & the MLS, are being prioritized over others, the general public.
Dr. Celine Gounder, an infectious disease specialist at NYU, believes the testing being conducted by professional sports leagues is “completely unethical and appalling”. Below is an excerpt from her interview with The Athletic explaining her reasoning:
“One of the major issues we’re having right now is turnaround times are long,” said Dr. Celine Gounder, in an interview with The Athletic. “To me as a public health person, the idea you would be offering same-day testing every day to a team, when people in the community have to wait days and we can’t do appropriate contact tracing and isolation, is a massive misallocation of resources in the middle of a pandemic where cases are on the rise and people are dying at increasing rates. … That is completely unethical and appalling.”
This is particularly concerning when you consider that Florida, where the NBA/MLS are restarting their season, had 12,478 reported cases on Sunday - the 8th consecutive day over 10,000 - and 89 deaths. The last 3-4 weeks of data seem to confirm that laboratory backlogs are contributing to the increased spread of COVID-19 in Florida.
So What, It’s Just A Few Days
A few days makes all the difference - When asked about the impact of test results being delivered a week or more later, Ezekial Emmanuel, professor of health policy and medical ethics at the University of Pennsylvania, summarized it perfectly (Source):
“They’re literally worthless at that point”
Each positive COVID-19 patient typically infects 2-2.5 others, which can increase dramatically if the person is unaware they are positive, or does not self-quarantine in the time between being tested and getting their results.
So the question remains - Should BioReference be prioritizing the results of professional athletes over the general public? As much as I want sports to return, it would be naive to think that desire should come at the expense of the general public or our countries overall COVID-19 response.
The Counter Argument
Jon Cohen, Executive Chairman of BioReference, said the NBA & MLS daily testing needs are “minimal” in their overall testing capacity and factors such as the league’s proximity to one of his company’s laboratories helped with their turnaround time (Source).
Cohen also wants the public to look at those involved as more than just athletes:
"I consider the MLS, the NBA, large employers," he said. "Literally thousands of people work for these leagues. So we're supporting, in some sense, the economic return of the country when we support large employers. Whether it's a sports franchise, or a retailer, or large manufacturer, or a food service organization. A lot of people want to say, 'oh, this is about special testing' or whatever you want to call it. It's not about that. For us, it's about how do we support this industry so that people can return to work. And there are real jobs at stake here."
Ultimately, as Rex Archer (the health director for Kansas City, MO) put it - “If there is enough money at the right price, you can get a lab to stand up and meet your needs”.
It seems the NBA & MLS have found that lab in BioReference.
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Extra Credit
For those looking for more NBA bubble content, @NBABubbleLife has been a great follow on Twitter. They dig through all the players social media content and curate the best moments for you. Here is one of my favorites:
There’s No I In Team
We need to build this community together. Tell me what you’re loving, tell me what you want to see more of. And most importantly, when your buddy asks how you know about professional sports contributing to the COVID-19 spike, tell em’ about us.