In Tampa, Florida, the NFL has set official attendance at the Super Bowl at 25,000 fans. Thirty thousand cardboard cutouts will fill the other seats. It will be the densest crowd of any pro football game since the start of the pandemic, raising fears the Super Bowl could become a superspreader event. A quarter of U.S. adults who responded to a Seton Hall Sports Poll said they were planning on gathering with people from outside of their household to watch the game — despite warnings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In New York, Yankee Stadium is opening today as a mass vaccination site in the Bronx, one of the poorest areas of the country and which has the highest COVID-19 positivity rate in New York City. Vaccinations will include frontline workers — including restaurant employees and taxi and ride-share drivers — and will be limited to Bronx residents to prevent “vaccine tourism.”