Baseball stadiums are reopening this spring. What's the COVID risk?
For the first time in over a year, baseball fans will be on hand to hear “Play ball!” loud and clear from their favorite seat -- albeit from less-than-packed stadiums in most cases.
All states and cities with Major League Baseball teams are allowing fans when the season starts on April 1, with one permitting full attendance.
While the sight of thousands of fans cheering in a single space might be a cause for concern given that that country is still recording tens of thousands of new COVID-19 cases a day, public health experts told ABC News that such gatherings should largely be safe. On top of that, some experts contend that stadiums are vital to local economies and cheering crowds will help boost morale for all.
Dr. Dean Winslow, an infectious disease physician at Stanford Health Care, said the limited capacity, mask mandates in the stadiums, and the outdoor settings for fans in most cases are strong enough to prevent the spread of the virus.
“I think it’s a minimal degree of risk with the limitations that have been proposed,” he said.
But Winslow and other health experts warned that fans and teams need to stay within the bounds of the current health restrictions over the spring and summer if they want to limit spread of the virus as vaccinations continue to roll out.
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