Professional sports may not be safe until after 2020, Fauci says as he warns of a potentially 'bad' fall and winter

• Major sporting leagues cannot return in 2020 without access to widespread and quick testing for the coronavirus, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the leading coronavirus expert in the US.
• US sports leagues, like Major League Baseball, have been eyeing ways to bring back games without spectators.
• "If we let our desire to prematurely get back to normal, we can only get ourselves right back in the same hole we were in a few weeks ago," Fauci told The New York Times on Tuesday.
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It may not be safe for professional sports to resume for the rest of 2020, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top US expert on COVID-19, said in an interview Tuesday.

"Safety, for the players and for the fans, trumps everything," Fauci told The York Times. "If you can't guarantee safety, then unfortunately you're going to have to bite the bullet and say, 'We may have to go without this sport for this season.'"

Fauci told the Times that the only way sports could return would be with widespread access to tests that yield quick results. His predictions come as he warned of a potentially "bad" fall and winter if the US is not adequately prepared for a second wave of COVID-19 cases, according to CNN.

He added: "If we let our desire to prematurely get back to normal, we can only get ourselves right back in the same hole we were in a few weeks ago."

Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, said it wouldn't be entirely impossible for sports like baseball and basketball to make a return amid social distancing, but it would be "logistically difficult."

Players would likely need to isolate from the rest of society to avoid spreading the virus, he said.

"In other words, we said that for baseball, get the players in Major League Baseball, get a couple of cities and a couple of hotels, get them tested, and keep them segregated," Fauci told The New York Times. "I know it's going to be difficult for them not to be out in society, but that may be the price you pay if you want to play ball."

Sports leagues, who have delayed or pushed seasons due to the pandemic, are itching to find a way to make a comeback. President Trump stated his desire to get professional sports back up and running.

The MLB, for example, has reportedly considered a plan that would start the season in either May or June and would involve holding games without an audience, isolating players from their families, and playing all games in Phoenix, Arizona at the Diamondbacks' Chase Field and at surrounding spring training facilities. Fans called such suggestions "insane."

The NBA and MLB have also reportedly mulled over playing games inside some sort of "bubble." Fauci previously said such an idea could work.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who leads the US state hit hardest by the pandemic, said baseball could possibly return in stadiums without an audience, which he said would be an important step toward a perceived return to normalcy and allow people "to start to see some hope and light."

Dr. Jeffrey Smith, the executive officer of Santa Clara County, California, suggested fans won't see "any sports games until at least Thanksgiving."

A Taiwanese baseball league at the beginning of April provided a preview of what could be to come in the US when it played its first game amid the pandemic to an audience full of mannequins, cardboard cutouts, and robots.

"I would love to be able to have all sports back," Fauci told The New York Times. "But as a health official and a physician and a scientist, I have to say, right now, when you look at the country, we're not ready for that yet."