Dozens of American athletes have been sidelined amid a spike in coronavirus cases due to Omicron. What happens next could hold clues for handling what's to come.
In March 2020, when the National Basketball Association abruptly suspended its season due to the pandemic, many saw it as the canary in the COVID-19 coal mine.
The basketball league had been urged to stop filling arenas amid concerns over the escalating health crisis. Even so, the drastic cancellation was among the earliest in a tsunami of shutdowns to come.A palpable sense of pandemic déjà vu is currently gripping the United States, as the fast-moving Omicron variant sweeps across the north-east.
Even so, dozens of games have been postponed and hundreds of players have been sidelined as the wildcard new variant rips through one of the healthiest, wealthiest and highly monitored sections of American society.
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