Large-scale Sporting Events and the Spread of COVID-19 in USA: The Case of the 2021 NFL Super Bowl, in Tampa, FL

After that the USA had dealt with a strong wave of COVID-19 infections, driven by the Alpha variant, the NFL Super Bowl event took place: February 7, 2021, in Tampa, Florida. In this context, we have studied the dynamics of the decrease/increase rate of the new daily SARS-COV-2 infections in all the 51 states, before/after that event, investigating the role that this event may have played in the spread of the virus. Using a piecewise linear regression, extending from the end of January 2021 till the end of February 2021, we found that, following a peak of the infections occurred approximately on the mid of January 2021 and a subsequent decreasing infection trend enjoyed by almost all the 51 states, this trend was inverted into an increasing one in 27 of those states (53%), within two weeks since the day of that sport event. Nonetheless, a new counter-inversion of the infections was registered, from an increasing to a decreasing trend, after some few more weeks, thus providing evidence in favor of the hypothesis that a major sport event alone may not have the strength to ignite new, stable and severe surges of COVID-19 infections