MLB players, employees to participate in coronavirus study

As the MLB's season remains paused, the league has found a valuable way to help aid in the fight against COVID-19.

According to Jeff Passan of ESPN, MLB players and team employees will begin to participate in a study that will test around 10,000 people for coronavirus antibodies. The goal of the study is to help better determine the true infection rate of the virus nationwide in the United States.

The participation from the league will range from players and teams' front-office staff to concession workers and more, Passan also reports.

Organized by Stanford University, USC and the Sports Medicine Research and Testing Laboratory (SMRTL), the study would test the subjects' blood for two types of antibodies: IgM, which is produced by the immune system relatively shortly after infection, and IgG, which, according to doctors, lasts longer in those who have been infected.

With how many people who have contracted COVID-19 and remain asymptomatic, the test, which reportedly offers results in as little as 10 minutes, would appear to be beneficial in tracking the rapid spread of the virus. The presence of the MLB was deemed beneficial by those in charge of the study.

“Why MLB versus other employers?” Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine at Stanford University, told Passan. “I've reached out to others, but MLB moved by far the fastest. They've been enormously cooperative and flexible. We're trying to set up a scientific study that would normally take years to set up, and it's going to be a matter of weeks.”

It is unlikely that partaking in the study would speed up the return of baseball in 2020.

“MLB did not partner with us for any selfish reason to get their sport back sooner,” Dr. Daniel Eichner, the president of SMRTL, told Passan. “They jumped in for public health policy. That was their intention and their only intention.”

"This is going to be unbelievable for public health policy, and sport is giving back," Eichner said. "Baseball gets nothing out of this other than to test-drive public health policy."

As of Tuesday night, 27 of the 30 MLB teams have announced participation in the study, according to the New York Post's Joel Sherman, who added that the test subjects began receiving and sending back tests on Tuesday.

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