Good news for anyone in pro baseball or summer-collegiate ball: Dr. Anthony Fauci says we could see larger crowds at ballparks by late spring or early summer if vaccination trends continue.
Appearing on CBS’s Face the Nation, Fauci warned that relaxed attitudes toward COVID mitigation has led to a small spike in infection rates across the country. Longer term, however, Fauci (Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases) sees the continued rise in vaccinations leading to lower infection rates–and that in term will lead to local and state governments relaxing capacity restrictions over time. Many states and county revisit capacity restrictions on a monthly basis; while current spike in infection rates may not lead to many large-scale changes in April, the hope is that higher vaccinations rates will have enough of an impact by May.
“I would expect that as we get through the summer–late spring, early summer–there’s going to be a relaxation where you’re going to have more and more people allowed into baseball parks, very likely separated with seating, very likely continue to wear masks,” he said on today’s broadcast.
Right now every MLB team is operating with some sort of capacity cap–we have compiled them here–but teams limited ticket sales to just the first portion of the year. A few MiLB teams have announced ticket-sales plans, but with that season launching in May, there’s more time to finalize plans.]
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