COLUMBUS, Ohio _ The sight of fans decked out in scarlet and gray and spread throughout Ohio Stadium this fall would mark one of the clearest signs of a return to normalcy in Columbus.
At a press briefing last week, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine considered the possibility of 100,000 people packed inside the stadium for a college football game.
His forecast was hazy.
"I don't think anybody knows," DeWine said.
Even as the spread of the coronavirus slows, it is likely to be later than sooner for sports to resume business as usual.
"Large gatherings of people are going to be the last thing that you check off the box," DeWine said, "and you say, 'We should be doing that.' "
To better grasp the challenges of the return of sports, The Dispatch spoke with Dr. Mark Cameron, an infectious diseases researcher and associate professor at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. Below is a transcript of the conversation with Cameron, who also studied the SARS outbreak in Toronto 17 years ago. It has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.
