The Detroit Pistons are reportedly offering up their new performance center to health officials for whatever use they require in coronavirus relief efforts.
Novel coronavirus has hit the sports industry hard in the United States, but teams are still doing all they can to combat the spread of this pandemic.
According to The Athletic‘s James Edwards III, the Detroit Pistons are offering their brand new performance center to health officials for whatever best use they can make of it. This includes their practice gym and team headquarters, which could be used for COVID-19 testing, as a temporary hospital for patients overflowing from Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, or as a sleep facility for medical staff.
Edwards reports that discussions are still in progress and nothing has happened yet, but the team offering up its facilities to help in any way possible sets a great example and should aid a lot of people during a time when medical professionals are overworked, understaffed and low on the supplies they need to do their jobs effectively.
While a skeptic might chalk some of this up to an NBA team acting in self-interest to help curb the spread of coronavirus in order to get basketball going again, the reality is we’re still months away from that even being a possibility. After one of their own players (Christian Wood) tested positive for COVID-19 a few weeks ago, the Pistons know as well as anyone how important it is to curb this pandemic in any way possible.
This gesture of goodwill is what we need to see more of in these dark times, especially since most of these facilities around the league are virtually empty and unused right now.
To date, more than 622,000 cases (and nearly 29,000 deaths) have been confirmed in more than 200 countries worldwide, including the United States, which has seen more than 105,000 affected Americans and 1,711 deaths. These numbers will only continue to rise as more cases are reported.
The World Health Organization declared it a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on Jan. 30 and countries have implemented curfews, travel bans and mandatory quarantines to help prevent its spread.
For more information about COVID-19, visit the CDC’s website or the website for your state’s Department of Health.