IDLab Workshop

Grigorii Teplykh  presented the study "The spread of COVID-19 and football: Lesson from Belarus. "A Feastball in Time of Plague"". Co-authors: Iuliia Naidenova, Petr Parshakov.

The COVID-19 pandemic shut down sporting events including football championships. However, Belarus was the single European country which has not suspended own tournaments during COVID-19 pandemics. In this study, researchers analyze the effect of ongoing Belarus football matches on the number of COVID-19 cases in 2020. The study rely on unique dataset obtained from anonymous survey. The results show that each football match per week provides 42-52 additional COVID-19 cases per day in home region. At the same time, stadium attendance and occupancy rate are not significant. These results also very similar to the influence of hockey championship who also did not stop in Belarus. Authors of the research formulate some possible explanations of these results in term of possible mechanisms of infection and spread of the virus. They could provide useful practical implications for policy.