Fans required to wear masks at all NFL games

NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy confirmed Wednesday that the National Football League will require fans to wear masks or face coverings at stadiums this season.

Last week, the Atlanta Falcons were one of the first NFL teams to announce a smaller, limited fan capacity at 2020 home games due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The team said there will be about 10,000 seats available for home games, according to WSB-TV.

On Monday, the Giants and Jets bowed to the inevitable and said their seasons would begin with no fans in the stands. Unless things change quickly in the next few weeks, there will surely be empty stadiums in Dallas, Kansas City or many of the 30 cities where the NFL plays.

That includes the most expensive stadium ever built, a $5 billion project that will house the Rams and Chargers in Los Angeles. It also includes the new $1.9 billion stadium that is nearing completion just off the Las Vegas Strip.

Researchers say wearing face masks in public prevented between 230,000 and 450,000 new cases of COVID-19 infections during a five-week period this spring, strengthening the argument of those in favor of mandatory face masks in public in the United States.

The study, published in the journal Health Affairs, said wearing face masks reduced the daily number of coronavirus infections by as much as 2% in states that require masks to be worn in public.

The argument about the need to wear face masks has been a muddled one. Originally, U.S. health officials told people not to wear masks, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention along with the U.S. surgeon general changed course in April and recommended that masks be worn in public to help slow the transmission of COVID-19.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

Cox Media Group