And so, as the latest wave — spurred by the Delta and Omicron variants — is spreading across the United States from east to west, leading to more than 300,000 new cases per day, more than doubling in the last two weeks, there has been no exemption for sports.
The N.F.L., which moved three games earlier this month because of virus outbreaks, had 96 players test positive for the virus on Monday. Dozens of N.H.L. games have been postponed or canceled and the league paused activities last week. Seven of the N.B.A.’s 30 head coaches are unavailable for various virus-related reasons with Philadelphia’s Doc Rivers and Denver’s Michael Malone, whose team’s game against Golden State was postponed, becoming sidelined on Thursday.
In college sports, hundreds of men’s and women’s basketball games have been canceled or postponed, and many teams have played short-handed — like Seton Hall, whose men’s team missed six players Wednesday in a narrow loss to Providence. And seven football programs have bowed out of bowl games because of virus outbreaks within their teams. One of them, U.C.L.A., withdrew from the Holiday Bowl just hours before Tuesday’s scheduled kickoff.
Most of the teams that could not play were overwhelmed quickly by outbreaks. Boston College had one player test positive just before it left for the Military Bowl in Annapolis, Md., on Dec. 22. He was left behind. By Dec. 25, more players had tested positive. There were more again on Sunday. With more than 40 players unavailable because of the virus, injuries, transfers and opt-outs, the school decided it could not safely play the game that had been scheduled for Monday.
At Virginia, position meetings were moved to the indoor practice field, where the garage doors on two sides of the building can be rolled up to allow for better ventilation. Flat screens were mounted to walls, folding chairs were set up in groups and projectors were put in place. Still, a handful of positive tests last week prompted the entire team to be tested on Christmas Day. When the tests came back on Sunday morning, there enough positives that the team bowed out of the Fenway Bowl, which had been scheduled for Wednesday.