Santa Clara Exec: 'Miracle' Needed for NFL Season to Start on Time in SF

The county executive for Santa Clara County said "a miracle" will be required for the 2020 NFL season to kick off on time at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California.

"It puts the entire country at risk," Dr. Jeffrey Smith told ESPN's Steve Fainaru and Mark Fainaru-Wada. "The fundamental thing is sports is not a local event. If you have people traveling from all over and you have no way of knowing whether they're infected or not—I mean, 50,000 of them in a stadium is not a good idea."

ESPN's Adam Schefter and Adrian Wojnarowski reported April 4 that President Donald Trump held a conference call with major league sports commissioners and expressed his hope to have fans attend events by August and September.

Trump addressed the situation during a White House briefing.

"The fans want to be back, too," he said. "They want to see basketball and baseball and football and hockey. They want to see their sports. They want to go out onto the golf courses and breathe nice, clean, beautiful fresh air."

California Gov. Gavin Newsom was skeptical about opening the state's stadiums for fans by the fall:

Smith also told Fainaru and Fainaru-Wada that the Santa Clara County health officer has the final say on signing off on sporting events.

"Neither the federal government nor the state government have the legal authority to contravene the public health officers," he said. "The law was set up very specifically to make the public health officers' decision an apolitical decision."

Dr. Sara Cody, the county health officer, told the reporters it's too early to say whether the pandemic will have slowed enough by football season to allow for sports to be played as scheduled.

"My sense is that we're in it for the long haul," Cody said. "The first thing we put in place was banning mass gatherings, and it's probably the last thing we would resume."

The World Health Organization has confirmed more than 1.9 million cases of the coronavirus. The United States' 578,268 cases are the most of any country.

NFL chief medical officer Dr. Allen Sills told NFL.com's Judy Battista the league would need to have widespread coronavirus testing available to get back to business as usual.

The league has made the 2020 draft "fully virtual" and delayed the start of offseason workouts as a result of the pandemic.