The Super Bowl, the biggest sports event in the United States, was on Sunday, drawing in a largely maskless, sizable crowd to the SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles.
But most watched the game from home, albeit with some large groups and gatherings. As with other major events, such as holidays, this could lead to a new surge of COVID-19 cases.
The likelihood of transmission is high particularly among the large group in the stadium, where most people weren’t bothering to wear their masks for much of the game, said Dr. Dean Blumberg, Professor and Chief of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at UC Davis Health on KCBS Radio's "Ask an Expert" with Holly Quan and Dan Mitchinson.
There are a lot of factors to take into account when measuring transmission at this type of event, said Blumberg, such as vaccination, distancing, "People are moving around a lot at these events," he said. "So really, the people you're closest to are going to be the people you’re sitting right next to, and maybe the people you’re traveling back and forth to the game with."
"Those are the highest risk for getting transmission," said Blumberg.
People who are vaccinated can still spread the virus, although, at lower rates than those who are unvaccinated, he said. Overall, there's a decreased risk the more people are vaccinated.
And even though about 90% of transmission occurs indoors, it's still possible for people to pass the virus to each other while outdoors. "You have to be very close to people when they're infectious for a prolonged period of time," he said. "So that's why any activity outdoors is going to be safer than indoors."
The hope is that whatever transmission happened at the event won't be as significant as past surges, with higher rates of vaccination and immunity through infection in the population.
Things are at a point where when infections do occur, they don't require hospitalization or cause death. If things continue on this trajectory, it might soon become just another treatable virus, like the flu. "I think we’re getting there," he said.
It's also unclear yet what kind of effect the state's expiring mask mandate will have on the rate of transmission, but whatever the result may be, it will likely show up in the next two to four weeks, said Blumberg.
"However, I think just because there's not a mandate doesn't mean people will stop masking," he said. "I for one will continue to mask indoors when I'm around other people."
For individuals, this will be something that will allow people to "take responsibility now for their own health more than they could before," he said.
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