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arXiv · 2301.07659

Impact of the Euro 2020 championship on the spread of COVID-19

Jonas Dehning·Sebastian B. Mohr·Sebastian Contreras·Philipp Dönges·Emil N. Iftekhar·Oliver Schulz·Philip Bechtle·Viola Priesemann
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Abstract

Large-scale events like the UEFA Euro~2020 football (soccer) championship offer a unique opportunity to quantify the impact of gatherings on the spread of COVID-19, as the number and dates of matches played by participating countries resembles a randomized study. Using Bayesian modeling and the gender imbalance in COVID-19 data, we attribute 840,000 (95% CI: [0.39M, 1.26M]) COVID-19 cases across 12 countries to the championship. The impact depends non-linearly on the initial incidence, the reproduction number $R$, and the number of matches played. The strongest effects are seen in Scotland and England, where as much as 10,000 primary cases per million inhabitants occur from championship-related gatherings. The average match-induced increase in $R$ was 0.46 [0.18, 0.75] on match days, but important matches caused an increase as large as +3. Altogether, our results provide quantitative insights that help judge and mitigate the impact of large-scale events on pandemic spread.

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Jonas Dehning, Sebastian B. Mohr, Sebastian Contreras, Philipp Dönges, Emil N. Iftekhar, Oliver Schulz, Philip Bechtle, Viola Priesemann. 2023-01-18. Impact of the Euro 2020 championship on the spread of COVID-19. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-35512-x

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