Unfortunately, it was only a matter of time, and that time has arrived: the first outbreak (scale yet unknown) at a Major League facility.
It’s the Phillies complex in Florida, a state where COVID-19 cases have been climbing at an alarming rate:
BREAKING: Coronavirus outbreak at Phillies camp — 8 positive tests. Story herehttps://t.co/YhBRXdgksX
— Jim Salisbury (@JSalisburyNBCS) June 19, 2020
Five unnamed Phillies players and three staff members have tested positive for COVID-19, and thankfully, per NBC’s report, none are in the hospital, “and the virus appears to be under control in all of them.” More tests are awaiting results, however.
To be sure, the reason there are going to be safety and testing protocols for the return to baseball is precisely because a total absence of the virus is impossible. What you need to be able to do – heck, what pretty much everywhere needs to be able to do in order to operate right now – is dramatically limit risks of transmission, immediately identify positive tests, quarantine those individuals and others at serious risk of transmission, trace all contacts, administer rapid tests to anyone who could be infected, etc. I hope that’s what has happened here at the Phillies facility and that’s how they actually identified these eight cases, but we’ll see.
I don’t want to tell anyone this isn’t a concern – it is. But I also don’t want to act like this isn’t precisely the risk we all take by leaving our houses to do things around other people at the moment. It’s a risk. Players have been working out at some facilities like this for only a few weeks, and have done so – in theory – under strict medical precautions. Yet the virus still spread, at least some. It’s that transmissible.
UPDATE: As you would expect, the Phillies have closed their facility:
The Phillies say 32 players and staff are still awaiting test results: pic.twitter.com/dTnX9GcIDm
— Matt Gelb (@MattGelb) June 19, 2020
A good and right and fine decision, though it kinda begs the more important question. Given what we know about virus transmission, closing a facility for a short period of time to disinfect is fine … but that’s not really what matters. It’s the humans that matter.
UPDATE 2: I would think that caring about your fellow humans would be enough, but even if that doesn’t urge people to change behaviors, note that it could sink sports, too:
From The Athletic's write-up on the story, which is ongoing (contact tracing and testing), something that should make your blood boil (and it's happening all over the country in various areas). https://t.co/h98dj3okaZ pic.twitter.com/TdzAS8HgU6
— Bleacher Nation (@BleacherNation) June 19, 2020
UPDATE 3: Lots of connections:
The Toronto Blue Jays on Thursday shut down their spring training facility in Dunedin, Fla., after a player exhibited COVID-19 symptoms, sources tell ESPN.
Dunedin is just up the road from Clearwater, where eight people in the Philadelphia Phillies organization tested positive.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) June 19, 2020
Multiple players working out at the Blue Jays facility said they had not yet been tested. If the player is not an isolated case, testing will ramp up. “We are being overly precautious with testing,” Blue Jays GM Ross Atkins told ESPN.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) June 19, 2020