There might be a silver lining to the 49ers' 31-20 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LIV.
The lack of a celebratory parade could have saved lives.
In what would have originally taken place in the streets of San Francisco, the mass gathering of people would have gone against the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's guidelines.
Mind you, the time frame was around early February where most of those weren't implemented quite yet, but Dr. Bob Wachter, chairman of the UCSF department of medicine told the Wall Street Journal, it could have been a disaster.
"It may go down in the annals as being a brutal sports loss, but one that may have saved lives," he said.
The celebrations did take place in Kansas City, which was not as much of a hot spot as the Bay Area was for the coronavirus.
"It would not have taken much spread in early February for the thing to have gotten way out of hand," Wachter said. "That would've been enough to light the fire."
According to NBC Bay Area, officials say the San Francisco area is home to what is believed to be the first U.S. cases of community COVID-19 spread with the first case reported in Santa Clara County on Jan. 31.
Studies have found people infected with the coronavirus typically show symptoms anywhere from two to 14 days after exposure. According to the Mayo Clinic, data has shown the spread of the virus is caused by respiratory droplets when someone talks, sneezes or coughs and if you're within six feet of one another.
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We can't say for certain what would have happened, but there could have been hundreds of thousands of fans blanketing the crowded streets of San Francisco. The same streets that grow eerily quiet amid the California coronavirus lockdown.
There were more than 5,000 reported cases of the virus in the Bay Area as of Apr. 12.
