Dr. Michael T. Osterholm On Team Sports Returning In 2020: “It’s not going to be easy to do”
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- The pessimism of team sports being able to safely return this fall season continues to surface in the media by respected health officials.
In his Sunday morning appearance on NBC’s ‘Meet The Press’, Dr. Michael T. Osterholm continued a trend of skepticism by national medical and health officials that team sports will be able to return to play safely this fall despite not yet having a vaccine for the coronavirus.
“At this point, it’s going to be a challenge if you have teams that continue to have outbreaks of cases within their players,” Dr. Osterholm said to NBC political director Chuck Todd, who is also the moderator of the ‘Meet The Press’ program. “At some point, we’ll hopefully have a situation where we won’t have all that transmission.”
The recent “transmission” of COVID-19 includes a USA Today report that counts 32 Football Bowl Subdivision programs having announced or having reports leak of a positive COVID-19 test since football players have returned to campus for voluntary summer workouts. Positive COVID-19 tests have been reported at high profile Power 5 Conference programs such as Alabama, Clemson, LSU, Texas, Auburn, Baylor, Michigan, Texas A&M and Mississippi State.
"It’s going to be a challenge if you have teams that continue to have outbreaks of cases within their players," Dr. Osterholm said to NBC.
University of Illinois athletics officials have refused to release numbers or specific names of players that have returned to the Champaign-Urbana campus for these voluntary workouts but the veteran players reported nearly two weeks ago, and the freshmen players began to report this past week. U of I athletics officials are also refusing, citing medical privacy laws as the formal reason, to report any positive COVID-19 tests.
Illinois senior linebacker Jake Hansen reporting back to campus for voluntary workouts on June 8.
Photo courtesy of University of Illinois athletics department
Osterholm’s comments come just three days after Dr. Anthony Fauci said in a Thursday interview to CNN's chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta that he’s not convinced football can be played safely during this fall season due to the ongoing concerns of the coronavirus.
Fauci is recognized as one of the world's leading experts on infectious diseases and has been a medical advisor to every United States president since Ronald Reagan. From 2001-2005, Dr. Osterholm served as a special advisor to then–United State Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson on issues related to bioterrorism and public health preparedness. Osterholm is also the author of the 2017 book titled Deadliest Enemy: Our War Against Killer Germs, which describes in detail a nine-point strategy on how to address the world’s most critical infectious diseases.
Yahoo Sports’ reporter Pete Thamel published a piece Saturday evening on the doubt that athletic directors and coaches have over the fate of a 2020 college football season starting on time in the fall or being played at all.
“Until we have medicine that gives people confidence about resuming activities or we get comfortable enough where we don’t flinch every time we see a new case count, it’s going to be hard to play,” Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin said in the Yahoo Sports piece. “It’s like every nerve is exposed on this topic.”