Experts believe 49ers' SB loss helped prevent mass spread of COVID-19

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The San Francisco 49ers' defeat to the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LIV may have prevented a more substantial loss.

San Francisco fell to Kansas City on Feb. 2 - the same day that doctors in the Bay Area were dealing with the region's first cases of COVID-19, report Andrew Beaton and Ben Cohen of the Wall Street Journal.

Had San Francisco won the Lombardi Trophy and held a championship parade days later, it could have led to a mass spread of the coronavirus.

"It may go down in the annals as being a brutal sports loss, but one that may have saved lives," said Dr. Bob Wachter, chair of the University of California San Francisco's Department of Medicine.

"It is certainly hard to imagine a more high-risk situation," added Dr. Niraj Sehgal, who heads the UCSF's COVID-19 command center.

That command center had multiple patients the morning after Super Bowl LIV.

Meanwhile, the Chiefs held their championship parade on Feb. 5, but the city of Kansas City didn't report its first case of COVID-19 until March 18.

"Some of it was lucky breaks, and this may be one of the lucky breaks that spared us from a much worse fate," Wachter said.