Fauci: Starting Season in September ‘Feasible’

“I would hope that by the time you get to September it’s not gonna be the way it is right now.”

GREEN BAY, Wis. – The NFL released its schedule on Thursday. Will those games actually be played?

That, of course, is an unanswerable question, an obvious point Dr. Anthony Fauci drove home in an interview with NBC Sports’ Peter King.

Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the NFL potentially could play games as scheduled in empty or partially empty stadiums with socially distanced fans.

“I think it’s feasible that negative testing players could play to an empty stadium,” Fauci said. “Is it guaranteed? No way … There will be virus out there and you will know your players are negative at the time they step onto the field.”

He added, “If the virus is so low that even in the general community the risk is low, then I could see filling a third of the stadium or half the stadium so people could be 6 feet apart. I mean, that's something that is again feasible depending on the level of infection. I keep getting back to that: It's going to depend. Like, right now, if you fast forward, and it is now September. The season starts. I say you can’t have a season—it’s impossible. There’s too much infection out there. It doesn't matter what you do. But I would hope that by the time you get to September it’s not gonna be the way it is right now.”

Testing has greatly ramped up across the United States, and should continue to do so as the NFL potentially kicks off its training camp in late July, preseason in mid-August and regular season on Sept. 10. Between players, coaches and other personnel, testing teams twice a week over the course of the season would require in the neighborhood of 200,000.

That’s a lot of tests that could be used for the population at large. If, as expected by many experts, there’s a second wave of the virus in the fall, that high number of tests might not be palatable.

“Right now, it would be overwhelmingly piggish,” Fauci said. “But by the end of August, we should have in place antigen testing. … You could test millions of people, millions of people. But again, we have to make sure that the companies that are doing these tests actually produce them. Which given the country that we have, such a rich country, I would be very surprised if we can’t do that.”

For all of King’s story, CLICK HERE.

Speaking of COVID-19 and NFL, Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer reported “a number of teams are already deep into exploring out-of-state training camp sites, in anticipation that their states’ restrictions will make staging camp at home in late July and early August impossible.” For that and much more from his Monday Afternoon Quarterback piece, CLICK HERE.