Column: Fear of unknown looms in sports as virus spreads

So far, at least, spring training ballparks are drawing good crowds and NBA and NHL arenas are mostly full. There’s little sign of coronavirus panic among U.S. sports fans, even if the team store doesn’t carry masks with their favorite player’s name and number on them.

That may change. And soon.

Two colleges this week canceled trips to the Seattle area for basketball games after an outbreak of the new coronavirus in Washington state, the first major U.S. sports disruptions because of the virus. Chicago State officials said in a statement that the decision not to make the trip to an area under a state of emergency was done with the "health and well-being of the campus community in mind.’’

It might be undue caution, but the schools decided the risk of contracting the virus was greater than reward of possibly winning a game. That mean’s there will be no senior day this year at Seattle University, where players were supposed to be honored before Saturday’s game against Missouri-Kansas City.

These are dangerous and unpredictable times. There’s a virus spreading that can kill, and it seems no large gathering is completely safe.

In Denmark on Thursday, a former professional soccer player who represented the country at the 2010 World Cup tested positive for the virus. Thirteen people who attended a soccer game in Amsterdam along with Thomas Kahlenberg were put in home quarantine, while three players from the Lyngby club who had been in contact with Kahlenberg were also quarantined.

And in Las Vegas, where five conference basketball tournaments will be played over the next week, officials on Thursday announced the first presumptive case of the virus.

Nobody knows just how much the coronavirus will spread. Nobody knows how much it will disrupt American sports...

source https://www.chron.com/sports/article/Column-Fear-of-unknown-looms-in-sports-as-virus-15108675.php