With COVID-19 currently surging across the country due to the Omicron variant, current processes and procedures have been adjusted. With some games postponed and stars of the league out due to positive tests, NBA commissioner Adam Silver spoke with ESPN‘s Malika Andrews and revealed there are no current plans to pause the season.
“No plans right now to pause the season,” Silver said. “We have of course looked at all the options, but frankly we are having trouble coming up with what the logic would be behind pausing right now.”
“As we look through these cases literally ripping through the country, let alone the rest of the world, I think we’re finding ourselves where we sort of knew we were going to get to over the past several months, and that is this virus will not be eradicated, and we’re going to have to learn to live with it. I think that’s what we’re experiencing in the league right now.”
Silver would go on to detail that 90% of the positive tests in the NBA right now are omicron.
In the past week, seven games have been postponed with the East-leading Chicago Bulls and Brooklyn Nets the hardest-hit teams. The Nets are currently without superstar Kevin Durant but are scheduled to take on the Los Angeles Lakers at Crypto.com arena on Christmas Day.
The omicron variant of the COVID-19 virus is officially the most dominant strain in America. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention announced the new variant currently makes up 73% of new cases in the United States. Last week that number was just 3%.
According to AP, the omicron variety is responsible for 90 percent of the new infections in New York, and the highly contagious strain, which is two to three times easier to pass than Delta, has caused a global double of cases in just three days, according to the World Health Organization.
