Miami Heat are Planning to Allow Fans in Arena Using Coronavirus Sniffing Dogs
In a plan that has taken months to formulate, the Miami Heat finally think they are ready to let fans back into their arena, with the help of COVID-19 sniffing dogs.
The Heat’s plan is to sell a little under 2,000 tickets per game (10% capacity). They will then have a COVID sniffing dog walk past everyone attending the game. COVID sniffing dogs are new to the US, however have been used in airports in Dubai, the UAR, and Helsinki for a few months now. Dogs’ superior sense of smell has led them to be used to detect drugs, stress, and even some cancers, so it is not surprising they are being used to detect COVID.
The Heat are also planning to exercise other safety precautions, such as not selling food, not allowing bags, going cash-free, and requiring all attendees to wear masks at all times.
While dogs are pretty accurate with detecting COVID, they are not perfect (≈94% accuracy), so any fans sitting within 30 feet of the court will be required to take a rapid COVID test in addition to the canine screening.
The Heat will join the Oklahoma City Thunder, Atlanta Hawks, Utah Jazz and Memphis Grizzlies as the only teams to have fans so far this season, however others will probably follow soon.
