The Covid-19 pandemic has affected every part of the world in every way. Hotels are experiencing a drop in occupancy, and travel industries are devastated economically. The sports world also has its share of grievances. The most significant impact that Covid-19 has had on sports is a change in schedules. Programs have changed, and both athletes and fans have to adjust. As different parts of the world are handling the pandemic with different timing, and things may not be as planned. In some countries, tennis will recover sooner than others.
Ways To Safely Carry Out Sports Events
There may be an air of uncertainty about how sporting activities will be done in the future and if stadiums will be allowed to be at full capacity like before. However, this shouldn’t be a reason to stop organising sports at the pro and amateur levels. The following tips are a good way to help you plan and hold sports activities in the new normal:
Encourage Testing
Testing participants will help you know who might have the virus so you can take the necessary precautions before they end up infecting other participants. For unvaccinated individuals, testing should be encouraged every two weeks, and this has to be done 72 hours before the sporting event to reduce the risk of infections.
Data on the prevalence of the virus will help you organise a sporting event without exposing anyone. Given that players will be in close proximity to one another when strategising or while getting ready in the locker room, you should encourage regular testing among them and the staff members who’ll be present in the venue.
Sell Fewer Tickets Than The Stadium Capacity
Sports fans will take advantage of any opportunity to fill the stadium or venue for the sake of supporting their favourite teams. However, with the pandemic still ongoing, reducing the number of fans attending an event is among the major changes that the sporting world has adopted. Therefore, you need to consider this when organising your own sporting event.
The best way to prevent your chosen venue from getting crowded is by printing and selling half or less than half of the number of tickets needed to fill the location. It will help those attending to observe social distancing and avoid contracting the virus as much as possible. If you don’t follow this measure before your area is deemed safe, you’ll endanger the lives of everyone attending.
Enhance Public Health And Social Measures
General public health is important in any sporting event, which involves public gatherings. First, you should ensure that there’s enough water for people to wash their hands or provide sanitisers for them to use. Secondly, ensure that non-players have their masks on and maintain proper social distance.
Doing so helps you protect all the attendees and staff members, not just the players. You should also ensure that you have enough medical officers in the field or stadium to attend to any emergencies that may arise.
Limit Social Activities
Sporting events can be accompanied by social activities such as parties, inter-team interactions, and other get-togethers as fans celebrate the success of their teams. Those have always been part of sporting cultures, but they can be channels through which the virus spreads.
To prevent that from happening, you should limit social activities before or after sports. Situations such as player-fan interactions should also be discouraged for the same reason.
Cooperate With Local Authorities
Organising a sports event amid the coronavirus pandemic requires more than just sports knowledge. Some health and social protocols need to be followed to ensure that the event is successful without putting anyone’s life at risk.
It’s important to work with the local authorities to get better insights into what you’re up against. This includes getting data from the health department about the prevalence of the virus in the region, the number of tested people, and the number of vaccinated people. If many individuals have been vaccinated, then you can go ahead with your plans. Knowing how prepared the region is to handle COVID cases would also determine whether you can hold the event there, move it to a different date, or change the venue.
Sports are a beautiful gift to billions of individuals around the world, and the coronavirus has threatened to take that gift away. Fortunately, those in the medical field as well as entire governments have worked and continue to work around the clock to try and restore normalcy. Although that hasn’t been fully achieved, it’s still possible to organise different sporting events. The key is to follow all the guidelines that have been set in order to control the spread of the virus.