The first case of Covid-19, The Guardian reported today, citing a South China Morning Post story, can be traced back to 17 November. Evidently, a 55-year-old from Hubei province is believed to have been the first in China to contract the coronavirus, with five new cases being registered daily thereafter in the following month. In the four months since almost 130,000 people around the world have contracted it. At the time of writing it has killed 4,702. It has been classified by the World Health Organization as a pandemic. But you didn’t need to know that, since Covid-19 is now unavoidable as a news story or on your social media timelines. It is the only thing people are talking about when they meet - should they meet - and, frankly, it’s got everyone spooked. As it should be.
Britain, being the island that we love identifying as, is perhaps behind the curve when it comes to responding to the global crisis. As infection rates and deaths have spiralled elsewhere - most notably in Italy - the UK has appeared to have fallen into its default Blitz spirit. “My grandparents lived through two world wars, and we’re not going to let this get us now.” Admirably stoic, but utterly pointless. Not even Herman Goering’s Luftwaffe had a weapon as dangerous, as unpredictable and as undetectable as Covid-19. And yet. At risk of falling into my own default, I can’t help looking at this pandemic through the lens of football. Last Saturday at Stamford Bridge the usual gallows humour was in play. Week-in, week-out neighbours still greeted each other with handshakes, and even Frank Lampard awkwardly opted for an embrace of former boss Carlo Ancelotti rather than an elbow bump - or nothing - as they met at the beginning of proceedings between Chelsea and Everton. Up in the East Stand, the row in front of us was half empty, a whole swathe of seats unoccupied. This could be, of course, just coincidence, but with other gaps visible around the ground, the inevitable conclusion was that a few of the usual 42,000 gave it a swerve due to the outbreak.
Football support is notorious for its machismo. “Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough” was the confrontational refrain in the days when football violence was conducted with mob force. You’ll recall that during the London Bridge terror attack of June 2017, football fan Roy Larner, who was drinking in the Black & Blue pub when knife-wielding terrorists burst in, decided to have a go, apparently declaring “I’m Millwall!”. Sadly, such bravado will not work against Covid-19. It’s a nasty, sneaky disease, infecting people long before they know it and long after it has been passed on. Which means that since last Saturday, I’ve been just waiting for that first dry cough, that spike in temperature, that unexplained ache.
My paranoia, however, is not being helped by the apparent house of cards that Covid-19 is turning sport into. At first there were mere adjustments: in January, the IOC rescheduled and relocated Olympic boxing and football qualifiers that had been due to take place in China’s outbreak epicentre, Wuhan. By the end of the month China had suspended all domestic football. As February unfolded, sporting events throughout Asia came to be cancelled or postponed, while towards the end of the month, a virus outbreak in northern Italy led to selected Serie-A games being postponed. Almost a month on, and things are dramatically different. Italy is now under national lockdown, and the list of sporting events being cancelled or postponed throughout the world is growing daily. Well, until today, mostly throughout the world. Just not here.
On Wednesday night I saw the stark contrast of approaches. One BT Sport channel was carrying the Champions League round-of-16 second leg between Liverpool and Atlético Madrid. Another BT channel was showing Paris Saint-Germain versus Borussia Dortmund. The difference between the two was startling: Anfield in full voice, the Parc des Princes, where the game was being played behind closed doors, absolutely sterile. The $64,000 question, then, is at what risk were those 52,000 spectators at Anfield put at? Even if the 3,000 Madrid fans went home happy after their dramatic 3-2 win on the night, what else did they go home with? And, given that Spain is starting to show a similar Covid-19 trajectory as Italy, what did they leave behind?
Two days on, and the coronavirus juggernaut has been ploughing through world sport. In the last 48 hours, further Champions League games have been postponed (Manchester City's last-16 second leg tie with Real Madrid being one after the Real first team was quarantined); Spain’s premier league, La Liga has been suspended for at least the next two rounds; three Leicester City players are now self-isolating; Juventus has revealed that 121 members of staff, including players, are now self-isolating after defender Daniele Rugani tested positive for the virus; Manchester City’s Benjamin Mendy is self-isolating after one of his family members was taken ill showing signs of the virus; and now Chelsea have revealed that Callum Hudson-Odoi "displayed symptoms similar to a mild cold on Monday morning" and stayed away from the club’s Cobham training ground in Surrey. Since then, other players have been sent home as a precaution while the club carries out a deep clean of the Cobham facility. Last night, at around 9.30pm, the Premier League announced that this weekend's fixtures would go ahead as planned. 45 minutes later Arsenal revealed that its manager Mikel Arteta had tested positive for Covid-19. 15 minutes after that, the league announced that it would hold an "emergency club meeting" this morning to discuss the crisis further. The outcome of that meeting is now known - the suspension of all “elite” professional football in England (Premier League, EFL, Women's Super League, Women's Championship) until 3 April at the earliest. At the same time, the remainder of the Scottish football season has been postponed indefinitely, and domestic football at all levels in Wales suspended until at least 4 April. Too little too late? Or simply, too late? Hard to tell. Some might say that all remains in the stable is a steaming pile of manure being wafted by a swinging stable door. Football, though, can't be blamed for any further spread of Covid-19, but given that, along with rock concerts, it represents one of the largest institutions in the UK where tens of thousands of people congregate, it surely must - unwittingly - have been playing its part.
Here, then, is where leadership comes in. I’m no medical expert. Indeed, the extent of my medical knowledge is firmly limited to keeping an eye on things that might kill me. So I'm not going to question, for now, the Government’s expert view that the second-phase "delay" strategy is the best to ensure the tail of this contagion doesn't reach into the later part of the year, or even resurface next autumn. But the delay in making decisions on things like sporting events troubles me. There are other scientific considerations. This morning, the UK government’s chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, told Sky News that 60% of the population would need to become infected with Covid-19 in order for the UK to control its recurring impact, applying the principle of “herd immunity” is to create resistance. to a contagious disease within a population because enough people have become immune, and so it is harder for it to spread. Covid-19 is, Vallance said, a “nasty disease” but was at pains to stress that most victims would only experience a "mild" illness. Tell that, then, to those who will die due to their age, underlying health conditions. He also admitted that the UK is "a little bit behind" other countries. “We’re trying to keep ahead of it,” he said. “We’re trying to lay out the path so people can see what the actions are that are being advised." Banning mass gatherings - like sporting events - and isolating entire households were merely the next steps being considered by the government, Vallance revealed. Contrast this with comments this afternoon from the World Health Organization’s plain-speaking executive director, Dr. Michael Ryan. Drawing on his past experience with Ebola, he made a sharply-worded comment on the dangers of slow decision making: "The fear of making a mistake is the greatest error in an emergency like Covid-19. The virus will always get you if you don’t move quickly. If you need to be right before you move, you will never win."
Cancelling or postponing any commercial enterprise en masse will always be financially painful and practically challenging. Pausing the football season temporarily will have a knock-on effect, pushing fixtures further into the early summer, shortening the summer break and preparations for the next season. This year's European Championships might have to be moved to next year. EFL clubs already teetering on the financial brink, who need every last cheeseburger sale for their very survival, might go under. But if football - or any of the other sports that are increasingly announcing cancellations or postponements - has to play its part and pay its part, it is, sadly, something we have to accept. Not wishing to be flippant, but invoking wartime sentiment is, perhaps, necessary. In that, Boris Johnson’s comments yesterday actually, for once, counted. I’m no fan of the prime minister, but his stark - and carefully worded - statement that "many more families are going to lose loved ones before their time" was an important piece of expectation management. Just as in a real war - the kind we haven't experienced in my generation - Covid-19 will kill people. Life will have to adjust. And sport will have to play its part in that adustment.
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