Over the weekend, NBC released a “Today” report that provided a dose of reality regarding Fauci’s fear mongering over football. Fauci has long argued that an enormous surge of COVID will arise from highly crowded football stadiums.
However, according to the NBC fact-checker, Fauci’s fears regarding a massive COVID surge were never realized.
Shaquille Brewster, an NBC reporter, openly remarked that packed stadiums for various sporting events have not become “super-spreader events” for COVID.
Brewster observed that crowds spanning well into “the tens of thousands,” including individuals who are “mostly unmasked,” have sat beside one another for week after week, “cheering on their teams at the halfway point of season.”
At the time, numerous physicians widely criticized the games, claiming that they had the potential to transform into major super-spreader events, “a frightening prospect at the time with hospitals already on the brink.”
Brewster points back to Fauci’s comments from several weeks ago when indicating that Fauci essentially failed his predictions on football and super-spreader events.
Back in September Fauci made an appearance on MSNBC, wherein he and host Joy Reid discussed the photographs surfacing of packed college stadiums.
“As soon as I saw [the photos], I thought COVID is about to have a feast,” Reid proclaimed before asking Fauci about his thoughts.
A little shocking! NBC report on how college football games are NOT "superspreader" events includes video of Joy Reid and Dr. Fauci sounding panicky notes. Ooooops. https://t.co/H8Bc2GoiPw pic.twitter.com/tjqapmVA2w
— Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) October 16, 2021
“I thought the same thing,” Fauci replied, adding that “it’s really unfortunate.”
However, the surge in COVID cases “never happened,” Brewster noted.
Moreover, Brewster also commented on the generally “steep decline” of COVID cases in virtually every college football state across the Southern region of the United States. In this region, hospitalizations declined by upwards of 64 percent. The declines continued even as nearly 100,000 fans packed the Gators’ stadium at the University of Florida.
In addition, Clay Travis, the founder of Outkick, also provided more detail into the declining cases. For instance, Georgia has experienced a 35 percent decline in cases, whereas Mississippi has experienced a 30 percent decline. Arkansas and Alabama have also enjoyed declines of 22 and 23 percent, respectively.
In all likelihood, an array of factors contributed to the absence of a surge, including outdoor venues, increased vaccinations, and higher natural immunity across the population, especially after the delta variant impacted a high number of young people.
Dr. Cindy Prinz noted that some critics might fight the packed stadiums “really scary” since people are not accustomed “to seeing that anymore.”
“But in reality I think the exposure isn’t as great as we think it is,” Prinz remarked.
