UCSF Doctors Believe 49ers Super Bowl Loss May Have Helped Stem Early Coronavirus Spread
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- After three months of battling the Bay Area's coronavirus outbreak, doctors at the University of California, San Francisco have a unique take on the role the San Francisco 49ers loss in the Super Bowl may have played in slowing the early spread of the virus.
Speaking with The Wall Street Journal, Dr. Bob Wachter, the chair of UCSF's department of medicine, and Dr. Niraj Sehgal, who leads UCSF's COVID-19 command center, said the loss prevented thousands from flocking into the streets in post-game celebrations and hundreds of thousands from gathering on the streets for a victory parade.
"It may go down in the annals as being a brutal sports loss," Wachter -- who has a popular Twitter account -- told the newspaper. "But one that may have saved lives."
In the months of the outbreaks, health care officials have said repeatedly there is only one known prevention for spreading the deadly virus -- social distancing.
There would have been no social distancing for a Super Bowl victory parade or mass post-game street celebrations.
"It is certainly hard to imagine a more high-risk situation," Sehgal told the newspaper.
At the time of the game during the first weekend of February, UCSF medical teams were treating a husband and wife who had been transferred to the facility from San Benito County after falling serious ill with the coronavirus. As of Monday, there were 20 patients being treated at the UCSF Medical Center.
The doctors realize the coronavirus patient load could have been much worse.
"Some of it was lucky breaks," Wachter told the paper of the lack of a huge spike in hospitalizations. "This may be one of the lucky breaks that spared us from a much worse fate."
It won't be the first time that a sporting event sparred the Bay Area of a much larger mass casualty event in a disaster.
When the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake struck at 5:04 p.m. Oct. 17, San Francisco Giants and Oakland Athletics fans had left work early to return home to watch Game 3 of the World Series being played at San Francisco's Candlestick Park. The elevated Cypress Freeway portion of Interstate 880 in Oakland would have been gridlocked with thousands of cars on a normal day.
Traffic was much lighter as the quake pancaked the double-deck roadway, trapping and killing motorists. Instead of thousands of fatalities, 42 people died at the Cypress structure. A total of 63 people were killed in the earthquake.
