COVID-19 spread in Europe: The soccer connection
Introduction: Mass gatherings such as sports events are potential causes for the rapid spread of COVID-19 infection. Millions of soccer fans travel across Europe every week. With the world`s most popular leagues continuing play until the second week of March 2020, we hypothesize that a correlation exists between the number of people attending the soccer league games in Spain, Italy, France, Germany, and the UK and the increasing number of cases of COVID-19 in these countries during the ongoing epidemic.
Methods: We have calculated the total number of attendees in the five major soccer leagues from the popular sports websites and the official pages of the league. The total number of COV-ID-19 cases were taken from the Worldometer websites.
Results: The average attendees in the last game week of five major soccer leagues during the second week of March 2020 ranged from 189,545 to 511,524. The total number of COVID-19 cases was 350,000.
Conclusion: Mass movement of spectators among different cities in the European countries to attend major soccer league matches can be one of the reasons for sudden increase in the COV-ID-19 cases. Before resuming these games, proper planning, surveillance, communication, and necessary modifications are required to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.
© Copyright 2020 The University of Louisville Journal of Respiratory Infections. University of Louisville. All rights reserved.
| Subjects: | |
|---|---|
| Notations: | sport games biological and medical sciences organisations and events |
| Tagging: | Großereignis Sportveranstaltung Coronavirus |
| Published in: | The University of Louisville Journal of Respiratory Infections |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2020
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| Online Access: | https://ir.library.louisville.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1108&context=jri |
| Volume: | 4 |
| Issue: | 1 |
| Pages: | Article 46 |
| Document types: | article |
| Level: | advanced |