COLUMBUS, Ohio — There were 13,000-plus in Value City Arena to watch Ohio State grind out a 61-56 victory over Penn State Sunday afternoon. As far as I could tell, every fan wore a mask, which is to say we could all breathe easier.
Props to Ohio State, which is maintaining a certain vigilance and is willing to pay a price for it. It's not easy. Concession stands are closed. Patrons are asked to distance as best they can. Public-service announcements reinforce the idea that we're all in this together.
I found this comforting. Here was a place where you could just sit and watch a basketball game, in an environment that might be described as neighborly. The collective focus was aimed, unwaveringly, directly at the court.
It almost felt like January 2019.
The omicron variant of the coronavirus appears to be less virulent, which is to say less likely to cause disease, but it has ripped through the U.S. in the seven weeks since it was first detected in California.
Over the weekend, the rate of new cases of COVID-19 spiked to an all-time high. If you're tired of this pandemic and you do not work in health care, then you probably have not plumbed the true depths of fatigue. Hospitals are jammed right now, and it's possible that the flow of new coronavirus patients will increase before it is stemmed.
"Hospitalizations and deaths lag way behind the new case data, so we haven't seen the worst omicron can do yet," said Mark Cameron, a virus expert.
Cameron is a professor in the Department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. It's a long title. The short of it: Cameron is a geneticist who develops immunotherapies and vaccines; his work branches into public health generally and epidemiology specifically.
For months (and months and months), he has been gracious enough to answer my questions and share his thoughts about the pandemic and its impact on sports.
"I'm dismayed that at the two-year point, with so much knowledge about the virus, with so much knowledge of effective protection, with so much sickness and death, that we're still dropping the reins when it most matters," Cameron said. "How can we become immune to this virus if so many have become immune to tragedy? Why are even the basics such an imposition?"
He continued, "I'm not trying to be too cynical, because in terms of large gatherings I still see a lot of masks, and assumedly there are a lot of vaccine cards nearby. But I don't understand why there's little-to-no effort being made at a variety of levels, from leadership to the (entrance) gates, to make sure the stands are filled with people checking two of three boxes at the very least: vaccine, test, mask."
Novak Djokovic, arguably the greatest male tennis player who ever lived, was deported from Australia on the eve of the Australian Open. Instead of trying to win a record 21st Grand Slam men's singles title, he's back home in Serbia because he is unvaccinated and lied on his entry declaration.
The next Slam is the French Open in May. Sunday, the French parliament passed a law requiring vaccines for anyone at restaurants, sports arenas and other venues. Djokovic has a decision to make.
Cameron sees these headlines. What he takes note of, however, are the overarching policies. For instance, as the Djokovic story went international, coronavirus rates were spiking in Melbourne — and Australian Open officials cut attendance to half-capacity to ensure better social distancing.
Cameron said, "(Beyond) hesitancy and hostility, there's the NBA a few weeks ago reacting to the new CDC 'feeling fine and free in five' guidance by putting in place a testing threshold on top of that guidance, likely knowing full well that the vast majority of COVID-positive players wouldn't test at the return-to-play threshold for seven to 10 days anyway. Now there's a league that has learned from this pandemic.
"The Beijing Olympics will have learned from the Tokyo Olympics, or at least the delegations will have. Most national leagues and international associations have very mature infection-control programs now, despite headlines about singletons."
That's progress. But we still need to do better for the people in the stands who congregate at these events, Cameron said.
We're all so tired. Here in the U.S., there have been nearly 67 million confirmed cases and more than 850,000 deaths from the virus. We don't want to hear that there may be new variants beyond omicron, but it's surely possible.
Hang in there. More than 524 million doses of vaccines have been administered in our country. It bears repeating that vaccines work and so does masking and social distancing. Every little bit helps. Hang in there.
