The NBA and its Board of Governors will have a call at some point on Wednesday to discuss a path forward as every corner of society is dealing with the spread of COVID-19. It’s already been recommended that teams come up with plans in the event major actions are put forward, and if the league ends up following the advice of the top infectious disease expert in the United States, games will occur without fans in the stands.
Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a member of the White House’s coronavirus task force, appeared in front of the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday morning. While there, Fauci offered a grim update, predicting that the fallout from the virus is “going to get worse” in the future before specifically mentioning the NBA.
“We would recommend that there not be large crowds,” Fauci said, per Noah Weiland of the New York Times. If that means not having any people in the audience as the NBA plays, so be it.”
This would not be an unprecedented move in the world of sports — Italy, which has been hammered by coronavirus in recent weeks, has postponed all sporting events through next month. And as Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN reported early on Wednesday morning, the league is considering drastic measures like the one Fauci recommended, but there are reservations due to the fact that, per Woj, “There is no full understanding of how widespread and debilitating the virus could become in the country.”
Having said that, it seems reasonable to suggest that the nation’s top expert on infectious disease calling for games to be played without fans should be taken very, very seriously, and we’ll see if that gets taken into account when this call happens on Wednesday and next steps become a little more clear.
