The Hillsborough County, Florida, health department has officially shot down claims by the left that Super Bowl 55 would be a coronavirus super spreading event.
Officials now say that despite the thousands of people who streamed into the area of the January championship game, there has been no appreciable rise in cases of coronavirus in Florida or elsewhere as the fans returned home.
NBC affiliate WFLA broadcast a Wednesday presser by the county health department during which county chief epidemiologist Michael Wiese said his office only found 53 confirmed cases among fans in Florida and those who returned home from the game.
Wiese noted a small bump locally in the virus positivity rate in the weeks after the game.
“This information, along with the low numbers that were reported, really leads to the conclusion that transmission that was occurring after the Super Bowl was the family get-togethers, the house-hold parties, the bars and restaurants that had unofficial gatherings and events associated with the Super Bowl,” Wiese said during the press conference. “While we didn’t really have a lot that was associated directly with the Super Bowl, we do know that the community kind of celebrated and got together in response to the events, which did show some increase in the transmission during the weeks afterward.”
Rob Higgins, executive director of the Tampa Bay Sports Commission, added that the Super bowl was “not a super-spreader.”
The news comes after months of warnings by health officials across the country that the NFL’s big game was dangerous. Indeed, Rochelle Walensky, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, pleaded for people to avoid gathering for the game, saying, “we need to watch this and be careful.”
“I’m worried about Super Bowl Sunday, quite honestly. People gather they watch games together. We’ve seen outbreaks already from football parties,” Walensky exclaimed in February.
Health officials in L.A. also warned against gathering for the Super Bowl, insisting that Super Bowl parties would be “super spreaders.”
Even the left’s favorite coronavirus guru, Dr. Anthony Fauci, beat the drum for the “super spreader” claim telling fans to avoid gathering in large groups for the game. “Enjoy the Super Bowl, but don’t do it with a large crowd of people in your house in a place when it’s cold and you don’t have good ventilation,” Fauci said in February.
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