Public health impact of mass sporting and cultural events in a rising COVID-19 prevalence in England

Jenifer A.E. Smith; Susan Hopkins; Charlie Turner; Kyle Dack; Anna Trelfa; Jerlyn Peh; Paul S. Monks

doi:10.1017/S0950268822000188

Public health impact of mass sporting and cultural events in a rising COVID-19 prevalence in England

Jenifer A.E. Smith^*, Susan Hopkins, Charlie Turner, Kyle Dack, Anna Trelfa, Jerlyn Peh, Paul S. Monks

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

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Abstract

A subset of events within the UK Government Events Research Programme (ERP), developed to examine the risk of transmission of COVID-19 from attendance at events, was examined to explore the public health impact of holding mass sporting events. We used contact tracing data routinely collected through telephone interviews and online questionnaires, to describe the potential public health impact of the large sporting and cultural events on potential transmission and incidence of COVID-19. Data from the EURO 2020 matches hosted at Wembley identified very high numbers of individuals who tested positive for COVID-19 and were traced through NHS Test & Trace. This included both individuals who were potentially infectious (3036) and those who acquired their infection during the time of the Final (6376). This is in contrast with the All England Lawn Tennis Championships at Wimbledon, where there were similar number of spectators and venue capacity but there were lower total numbers of potentially infectious cases (299) and potentially acquired cases (582). While the infections associated with the EURO 2020 event may be attributed to a set of socio-cultural circumstances which are unlikely to be replicated for the forthcoming sporting season, other aspects may be important to consider including mitigations for spectators to consider such as face coverings when travelling to and from events, minimising crowding in poorly ventilated indoor spaces such as bars and pubs where people may congregate to watch events, and reducing the risk of aerosol exposure through requesting that individuals avoid shouting and chanting in large groups in enclosed spaces.

Original language	English
Article number	e42
Number of pages	9
Journal	Epidemiology and Infection
Volume	150
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1017/S0950268822000188
Publication status	Published - 31 Jan 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information: The Events Research Programme was supported by UK government officers from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), Business Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and Public Health England (PHE) Data collation and analysis was undertaken by Anna Trelfa, Jerlyn Peh and colleagues within the Field Epidemiology Service, PHE and DCMS Tom Rodden, Sam Lister, and Theresa Marteau provided helpful comments on the manuscript.

Open Access: Published by Cambridge University Press. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-
NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided that no alterations are made and the original article is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained prior to any commercial use and/or adaptation of the article.

Publisher Copyright: © 2022 The Author(s).

Citation: Smith JAE, Hopkins S, Turner C, Dack K, Trelfa A, Peh J, Monks PS (2022).
Public health impact of mass sporting and cultural events in a rising COVID-19 prevalence in England. Epidemiology and Infection 150, e42, 1–9.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0950268822000188

Keywords

COVID-19 transmission
Euros 2020
epidemiology
mass events

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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Smith2022PublicHealthImpactOfMassSportingAndCulturalEventsInARisingCOVID-19PrevalenceInEngland EpidemiolInfectFinal published version, 609 KBLicence: CC BY-NC-ND

Cite this

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abstract = "A subset of events within the UK Government Events Research Programme (ERP), developed to examine the risk of transmission of COVID-19 from attendance at events, was examined to explore the public health impact of holding mass sporting events. We used contact tracing data routinely collected through telephone interviews and online questionnaires, to describe the potential public health impact of the large sporting and cultural events on potential transmission and incidence of COVID-19. Data from the EURO 2020 matches hosted at Wembley identified very high numbers of individuals who tested positive for COVID-19 and were traced through NHS Test & Trace. This included both individuals who were potentially infectious (3036) and those who acquired their infection during the time of the Final (6376). This is in contrast with the All England Lawn Tennis Championships at Wimbledon, where there were similar number of spectators and venue capacity but there were lower total numbers of potentially infectious cases (299) and potentially acquired cases (582). While the infections associated with the EURO 2020 event may be attributed to a set of socio-cultural circumstances which are unlikely to be replicated for the forthcoming sporting season, other aspects may be important to consider including mitigations for spectators to consider such as face coverings when travelling to and from events, minimising crowding in poorly ventilated indoor spaces such as bars and pubs where people may congregate to watch events, and reducing the risk of aerosol exposure through requesting that individuals avoid shouting and chanting in large groups in enclosed spaces.",

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Public health impact of mass sporting and cultural events in a rising COVID-19 prevalence in England

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

UN SDGs

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