The Miami Marlins reportedly have 11 players and two coaches that tested positive for COVID-19 and now the MLB is scrambling to readjust their strategy.
MLB's Coronavirus Problem Pops Up Four Days Into Season
The Miami Marlins reportedly have 11 players and two coaches that tested positive for COVID-19 in the last few days. That’s now a major problem for Major League Baseball.
The Marlins played in Philadelphia over the weekend and stayed in the visitor’s clubhouse. That same room was scheduled to be used by the Yankees for their match-up against the Phillies on Monday night. Because of the Marlins coronavirus outbreak, the league is now fumigating that locker-room and postponing the Yankees and Phillies matchup.
Meanwhile, the Marlins were scheduled to have their home opener against the Baltimore Orioles Monday night. That game too has been postponed.
MLB league officials are scheduled to have an emergency planning meeting on Monday afternoon to discuss plans going forward.
Dr. Fauci warned TheStreet's Katherine Ross of this very issue. In June, Fauci told TheStreet report:
“So you can't look at the United States just in a unit-dimensional way. It's very different if you're in an area like New York City, where you have a lot of people and you'd been hit very badly. Right now, they're doing much, much better. But if you were in a situation where you had a high degree of activity, versus a county, somewhere in Wyoming, with this very little infection, you've got to look at what's going on now.”
He added, "So, therefore, when you talk about sports, you’ve got to be talking about what's the level of infection.“
Kyrie Irving to the Rescue
There was a great gesture on behalf of Brooklyn Nets superstar Kyrie Irving who is donating $1.5 million to WNBA players that are sitting out this season because of concerns over the coronavirus or to focus on social justice reform. Irving launched KAI Empowerment Initiative which is part of a partnership with UBS to provide financial literacy.
In addition, this initiative will give all WNBA players access to a comprehensive financial literacy program created by UBS to ensure that financial empowerment continues beyond the initial investment, the KAI Empowerment Initiative is collaborating with the Peak Wealth Management Group at UBS under the guidance of Antwyne DeLonde and Walt Williams.
“We’re proud to offer this best-in-class Own Your Worth financial participation program to the KAI Empowerment Initiative, which shares the belief that it’s important to provide financial resources to all women and to support gender-equal opportunities to secure their financial future,” says UBS Financial Advisor, Antwyne Delonde.
The WNBA started their season over the weekend but several of the league’s stars are choosing not to play. The league informed those players they will not earn their salary this season if they don’t participate.
Daily Business and Coronavirus Update
There are 16.3 million cases of the virus worldwide, with over 649,000 deaths. The U.S. has 4.2 million cases with over 147,000 deaths.
Google is extending its employee work-from-home mandate until at least next July, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday, citing sources familiar with the matter. Google is one of the first large tech companies to extend its work from home orders so late for its more than 200,000 employees.
CNN obtained a copy of the memo, in which CEO Sundar Pichai said,
“To give employees the ability to plan ahead, we’ll be extending our global voluntary work from home option through June 30, 2021, for roles that don’t need to be in the office... I hope this will offer the flexibility you need to balance work with taking care of yourselves and your loved ones over the next 12 months.”
The question next is whether or not this means "Big Tech" will follow and what other large U.S. corporations will do.
So far, Amazon is allowing workers to stay at home until January 2021, and Microsoft, in May, said that employees have the ability to work from home until October and both Twitter and Facebook are adjusting their work from home policies so that as many as 50% of Facebook employees could be working remotely within the next five to ten years and Twitter is allowing employees to have the option of working from home “forever.”
TheStreet's Katherine Ross contributed to this report.