49ers' Super Bowl Loss May Have Prevented Coronavirus Catastrophe

SAN FRANCISCO, CA — The San Francisco 49ers' fourth-quarter loss to the Kansas City Chiefs in February's Super Bowl LIV was heartbreaking — but nowhere near as tragic as the new coronavirus outbreak that could have emerged if they'd won, according to a team of Bay Area doctors.

The Niners' loss meant that San Francisco didn't get to throw a victory parade, where hundreds of thousands of fans would have filled the city's streets. By Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 2, the Bay Area had already confirmed some of the country's first coronavirus cases, meaning the virus was already spreading in the region, the Wall Street Journal reports. (Kansas City, meanwhile, didn't confirm a case until March 18).

A victory parade, then, could have been a "super-spreading" event that would have dramatically worsened the Bay Area's coronavirus outbreak, according to doctors at UC San Francisco's COVID-19 command center, which was racing to get set up while the 49ers and Chiefs were facing off in Miami, the Journal reports.

There's plenty of precedent for parades acting as virus hubs. A World War I rally held in Philadelphia during the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic devastated the city, and experts say the same thing could have happened in San Francisco. If the giant turnout for the Golden State Warriors' recent victory parades is any indication, Bay Area fans would have turned out in droves to celebrate the 49ers.

It may be the first and last time that 49ers fans can feel grateful for a loss.

Read more at the Wall Street Journal.

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