More than 44,000 people traveled to the Champion’s League match Atalanta vs Valencia which was held in Milan last month. Italian and Spanish clubs played on February 19th and now both Italy and Spain have more than 70,000 infections between them with the death toll in both countries topping 5,000.
Immunologist Professor Francesco Le Foche said: “It’s probably that there were several major triggers and catalysts for the diffusion of the virus. The Atalanta-Valencia game could very well have been one of them. It was the apex of collective euphoria in a unique football season for this club.”
“The aggregation of thousands of people, centimeters from each other, engaging in manifestations of euphoria like hugging, shouting, all of that could’ve favored viral reciprocation. I have to imagine many didn’t want to miss that game if they had tickets, even if they felt a slight fever” professor La Foche stated and added that at the time they had no idea how contagious virus is and that today it would be unthinkable to have such an event.
Valencia has announced 35% of their squad and staff tested positive for coronavirus. Atalanta goalkeeper Marco Sportiello has tested positive for CoViD-19.
Spanish paper “Marca” reported: “The match was a biological bomb. At that time we did not know what was happening. If the virus was already circulating, the forty thousand fans who went to San Siro were infected”.
