Was the arrival of Turin supporters at Groupama Stadium an “accelerator” of the coronavirus pandemic in the Rhone region? This is the opinion of Dr Marcel Garrigou-Grandchamp. In a publication made Tuesday on the site of the Federation of Doctors of France (FMF) this former general practitioner of the third arrondissement of Lyon points to the holding of the knockout round of the Champions League between Olympique Lyonnais and Juventus.
Won 1-0 by OL, this match took place on February 26, with nearly 58,000 people. The Covid-19 was already claiming many victims in Italy, especially in the north of the country. Despite calls for a postponement, the French executive had authorized the meeting and the coming of supporters of the Turin club. A prevention message had been broadcast on the giant screens and some spectators had taken care to wear a protective mask.
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“An explosion of cases in the Rhône”
“Those who defended the maintenance of the match, with the arrival of 3,000 tifosi in Lyon, argued that” Turin is not Lombardy “. Which is stupid for those interested in football, the Turin club drawing supporters all over Italy and even beyond! “protests Dr Marcel Garrigou-Grandchamp. “Exactly two weeks later there was an” explosion “of the cases of Covid-19 on the Rhône”, he continues. A statement that the doctor supports with a graph showing that the contaminations listed in the Rhône is more than three times higher than what is found in Isère and Haute-Savoie.
The doctor also makes a parallel with another eighth finals of the Champions League, opposing Atalanta Bergamo to Valencia CF (4-1) on February 19. The match took place in Milan, in the region now hard hit by the pandemic. Local doctors and the Italian representative for the World Health Organization (WHO) recently estimated that this event, gathering around 46,000 spectators, had been a “biological bomb” in Lombardy. “A week later, France has failed to learn from the Italian example,” said Dr. Marcel Garrigou-Grandchamp.
The ARS does not establish a link
The Regional Health Agency (ARS) rejects however the hypothesis of a correlation between the OL-Juventus meeting and the evolution of the pandemic in the area. “After verification with the persons in charge of the investigations around the biologically confirmed Covid-19 cases (…), the investigations carried out individually for each case did not highlight any cases related to the match”, according to a communication from the health authority reported by Progress.
The round of 16 return leg, which was scheduled behind closed doors on March 17 in Turin, was finally postponed by UEFA to an unknown date.
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