Public Health Expert Explains Why MLB Should Probably Cancel Games Amid Coronavirus Outbreak

On Monday, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred held a conference call with the 30 club owners to discuss how the league should proceed in the wake of the spread of the Coronavirus.

Per an official statement, MLB stated that it intends to play out the remaining Spring Training schedule, and that the regular season will proceed as previously planned, pending further national declarations from the White House.

The settlement was expectedly met with controversy, and Hannah Keyser of Yahoo! Sports reached out to a public health expert, and the resulting quotes prove that the league should seriously consider cancelling games.

As of now, MLB is planning to finish spring training and open the season as planned — with fans in attendance. So I talked to a public health expert about why that's probably a bad idea (and incidentally, why banning media but not fans is hypocritical) https://t.co/8XzUxoLGmA pic.twitter.com/r4599fgCZH
— Hannah Keyser (@HannahRKeyser) March 9, 2020

That's truly about as transparent of an interpretation as we could've asked for.

Younger folks are said to be able to weather the virus so much so that they might not even realize they have it. That could lead to them toughing it out and attending games for which they already bought tickets, completely negligent of the fact that their contagious illness could easily spread to an elderly fan sitting nearby.

lotta people like "stay home if you're 80 and don't want to die of COVID19" but 1. you seem nice and 2. maybe you're a healthy-seeming 20something with asymptomatic coronavirus seated next to a 50yr old woman CARING FOR her 80yr old parents.
— Hannah Keyser (@HannahRKeyser) March 10, 2020

There's simply an endless chain reaction that MLB must take into account in its future consultations regarding cancelling games.