By Antigoni Zachari / info@eurohoops.net
The current NBA season has been impacted by the recent COVID-19 spike caused by the hyper-infectious Omicron variant. Seven games have been postponed as of Wednesday and over 100 players and coaches have entered the NBA’s health and safety protocols. Despite the rapid increase of COVID-19 infections, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver stated the league doesn’t intend to pause its season.
“No plans right now to pause the season,” Silver said in an interview with Malika Andrews on NBA Today. “We have of course looked at all the options, but, frankly, we are having trouble coming up with what the logic would be behind pausing right now”.
“As we look through these cases literally ripping through the country, let alone the rest of the world, I think we’re finding ourselves where we sort of knew we were going to get to over the past several months, and that is this virus will not be eradicated, and we’re going to have to learn to live with it. I think that’s what we’re experiencing in the league right now.”
Silver also stated that the dominant strain detected in most cases is the hyper infectious Omicron. “We’re up around probably 90% of the positive cases we’re seeing right now are omicron,” Silver said.
“We have a lot of data we look at. In terms of players and coaches that have gone through the three-shot protocol, meaning the two mRNA shots and then the booster, and then past two weeks, only a very small number of those people have been breakthrough cases where they’ve turned positive,” Silver said. “And they essentially have been asymptomatic or very mild symptoms. We’re also dealing with a large group that either have one J&J shot or haven’t been boosted yet”, he added.