Marlins outbreak casts harsh light on US coronavirus response
Source: The Hill
Major League Baseball's 2020 season has been upended just days after it began as nearly 20 members of the Miami Marlins have tested positive for COVID-19, forcing the suspension of the team’s play and casting a harsh spotlight on the U.S. struggle to contain the pandemic. The league announced Tuesday that Miami will not play again until next Tuesday at the earliest, putting the team's season on pause after it played just three games.
But the experts argued that the Marlins will minimally need to shut down for an extended period until there are no new positive tests for a few days. “You need to figure out how their outbreak occurred,” said Jill Roberts, an epidemiologist at the University of South Florida. “Who's the first case and how did they get infected? So for MLB to move forward they really need to know where their plan failed.”
“This could put [the season] in danger,” Anthony Fauci, the government's top infectious diseases expert, said on “Good Morning America” of the Marlins' outbreak. “I don’t believe they need to stop. But we just need to follow this and see what happens with other teams on a day-by-day basis.”
The country's struggles with bringing back sports without issue is a microcosm of how its response to the pandemic has fallen short of other nations'. The U.S. has by far the most reported cases of coronavirus at 4.3 million, according to Johns Hopkins University data, and states like Florida continue to set daily records for infections and deaths.
Read more: https://thehill.com/homenews/coronavirus-report/509434-marlins-outbreak-cast-harsh-light-on-us-coronavirus-response
Countries in Europe were able to successfully flatten the curve of infections and have seen the resumption of major soccer leagues, albeit without fans.
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