Premier League warned to crack down on handshakes and hugs during matches to avoid Covid spread

[ASFN Admin]

The Premier League and other elite sports bodies have been warned to crack down on handshakes and hugs during matches to avoid spreading the new coronavirus variant that has plunged the country into a third national lockdown. Safety protocols restricting physical contact between players and coaches have been flouted with impunity since the ban on elite sport being played during the pandemic was lifted last summer. That has remained the case even since a new, more contagious, Covid-19 variant began wreaking havoc on football and rugby, with a spate of positive tests forcing them to postpone and even scrap matches. There are mounting fears the variant could be spread during games amid outbreaks among opposing teams after matches between them, most recently at Sheffield Wednesday and Derby County. Professor Gabriel Scally, president of the epidemiology and public health section of the Royal Society of Medicine and a member of Independent Sage – which holds the Government’s scientific advisors to account – told Telegraph Sport there was bigger risk “in theory” of the new variant being spread during matches. He added: “If sportspeople are doing heavy physical activity, as they are – vigorous physical activity – and they’re breathing heavily, that increases the viral load that, if they’re positive, they would be distributing towards others.”

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