As COVID-19 put a halt to most activities during the early part of 2020, professional sport was among the first to be stopped, as governments around the world decided that allowing thousands of spectators to stand in close proximity to one another was not a great idea. When the sports themselves resumed over the summer, they generally did so behind closed doors.
A new model has been developed by researchers at Washington University in St. Louis to help guide teams in when to re-open their turnstiles. The model assess the health risk from attending a live sporting event versus other similar activities, including flying from an airport, going to school, or attending a church service.
The tool, which has been dubbed “Safer Stadia”, is documented in a couple of papers, one available on arXiv and the other on medRxiv. It used the TD Garden facility in Boston as the basis for the model to try and provide a risk analysis of attending events there versus other public events and venues.
Risk assessment
The researchers reasoned that risk is generally equal to the hazard involved multiplied by the exposure someone can realistically expect. They used such a relatively simple model in large part because it would be both more transparent and robust.
They began by identifying the various transmission risks possible in a sports venue. This included assessments of factors such as time, the number of people spectators might interact with, and our proximity to others. These were all factors the team believe could be controlled with the right measures.
The researchers then began to factor in the stadium experience so that the sequence of activities a spectator might undertake could be mapped, along with the amount of time required for each activity. This included things like entering the stadium, processing tickets, watching the event, and so on. Each of these activities was then assigned a risk factor, before the researchers then estimated the total impact of any mitigating policies on the overall experience.
Taken together, this allowed the researchers to create a model that assigned each event a risk score that they believe will allow teams to devise effective mitigation strategies and pitch to local officials regarding the safe re-opening of live events.
Mitigating factors
“There’s a difference between moderate risk and crazy risk,” the researchers explain. “The point of the model is to assess what’s important in the stadium experience and what’s not. We learned pretty quickly two big takeaways: The single most important risk factor in a fan experience is seating; and, with mitigation, the risk in everything else is relatively small.”
These mitigation factors could include things such as wearing a mask, but while this is widely believed to be effective, ensuring adherence among a large crowd of people could be hugely problematic. Nonetheless, a fan survey included as part of the research found that 70% of fans would still attend if mask wearing was compulsory.
“When it all starts back up, there’s going to be reduced occupancy and the fans who attend are going to be the most avid ones, most likely season ticket holders,” the researchers continue. “The punishment for not obeying the rules is you’re going to get kicked out. Teams are going to be able to enforce rules, much more so than can be enforced in other public situations.”
The next step is to make the tool available throughout the professional sports industry to hopefully ensure that live sports begin to open up again in a safe manner.
