49ers Suffered a Crushing Loss to Kansas City, But They Might Have Saved Thousands of Lives
Nathaniel Ilfeld
49ers Suffered a Crushing Loss to Kansas City, But They Might Have Saved Thousands of Lives
With 1 minute, 12 seconds left in Super Bowl 54, Damien Williams ran 38 yards for a touchdown, crushing the hearts of 49ers’ fans for the second time in 9 years. Yet, the loss might not have been all bad news for San Francisco.
@49ersWho else is thinking about sunnier Sundays rn?(Source)
Kansas City Chiefs
After every season of one of the 4 major sports (Football, Baseball, Basketball, Hockey,) the championship-winner holds a huge parade in their home city, usually drawing 100,000 to 1.5 million fans. On February 5th, there were an estimated 250,000 people at the Kansas City Chiefs parade in downtown Kansas City, Missouri.
The Danger of San Francisco
Right around the end of the Super Bowl, the first cases of the coronavirus were spreading in the US. California had reported cases around the end of January, while the first case of Coronavirus in Missouri was reported on March 8th, more than a month after California.
In 2012, the San Francisco Giants won their second World Series in 3 years and an estimated 1 million showed for the parade. So, if the 49ers, who have not won a Super Bowl since 1995, had beaten the Chiefs, there would have been well over 1 million fans that showed up to celebrate history, around 5 times as many people that celebrated the Chiefs victory.
This would have been disastrous since there have almost been 29,000 reported cases of coronavirus in California without the parade. With the parade, San Francisco could have had thousands of extra coronavirus cases to treat.
