Archives for February 2021

NEW YORK (AP) — Completing the 2020 season required MLB to rewrite its rule book. Stadiums were emptied, schedules rewritten. Some players opted out. The ones that didn’t spat into COVID-19 testing cups until their mouths went dry.

“When it was all said and done, you kind of look back and go, ‘God, that was the longest 60 games I’ve ever been a part of,” veteran pitcher Jon Lester said last month.

Well, to borrow from another Chicago Cubs favorite:

Let’s play 162!

Against the backdrop of a still dangerous coronavirus pandemic, pitchers and catchers are reporting to spring training this week, the first step in a 2021 season that will take many of the complexities from 2020’s 60-game sprint and stretch them over an additional four months.

Sure, there’s the usual buzz over players with new homes. Blake Snell and Yu Darvish, hoping to push the upstart San Diego Padres over the top. Still in their way, the World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers, who upgraded with NL Cy Young Award winner Trevor Bauer. Francisco Lindor is a Met, Nolan Arenado a Cardinal, and George Springer and Marcus Semien have joined up on the Blue Jays.

This season, though, promises to again be defined by the pandemic.

Offers by MLB to delay opening day were rejected by the players’ association last month, defaulting the league into an on-time start.

Baseball will again use seven-inning doubleheaders and runners on second base to start extra innings — experiments introduced during last year’s condensed regular season to ease the burden on pitchers amid a flood of postponements prompted by positive tests and contact tracing.

Sunflower seeds are still outlawed, and high-fives frowned upon, too. Although limited-capacity crowds are expected at many stadiums, autographs will remain a no-no.

Other 2020 changes have been put on the bench. The universal designated hitter is gone, and no deal has been reached to re-expand the postseason. Of course, last year’s agreement to fatten the playoff field from 10 to 16 teams wasn’t finished until hours before the first pitch on opening day, so there’s precedent for a late change.

Then again, the league and union have agreed on little lately — hardly a promising sign with the collective bargaining agreement set to expire Dec. 1. Expect chatter about that this spring, too.

Scheduling figures to remain a headache. There were 45 games postponed for coronavirus-related reasons last year, and all but two were made up.

Players will again be tested 3-4 times per week for COVID-19 and heavily restricted in what they can do during their time off. Lester, signed by Washington as a free agent in January after six seasons with the Cubs, compared the exhaustion of last year’s protocols to a deep playoff run.

“Mentally, you don’t realize how draining it is until you’re done,” he said. “I think last year was that. It was two months of that mental grind of the testing, worrying about the testing, making sure you’re doing all the right things.”

And now it’s time to start all over, beginning soon in Clearwater, Tempe and all the familiar camp sites.

Spring rosters will be limited to 75 players, with minor league camps delayed until the big leaguers leave town for opening day April 1. For fans accustomed to exploring the backfields, there won’t be much to see.

The good news for all involved — spread of the virus has slowed near camps. Arizona has dropped from a peak of nearly 14,000 daily cases to under 3,000, while Florida went from a high of 19,000 daily cases to under 8,000.

Still, MLB has adopted extra spring precautions. The Grapefruit League schedule was reworked to limit travel, and clubs won’t play exhibitions against local colleges — usually a spring staple. Some early games may be shortened to five or seven innings, and half-innings can be called off before three outs if a pitcher has thrown at least 20 pitches.

MLB has claimed billions in losses after playing the 2020 season almost entirely without fans, and free agents were met by a sluggish market this winter.

Several notable players remain available. Righty starter Jake Odorizzi, an All-Star in 2019, is still without a deal after various ailments ruined his 2020. Gold Glove center fielder Jackie Bradley Jr. hasn’t found a home, either. Trevor Rosenthal, Taijuan Walker and others could help a contender, too.

Championship managers Alex Cora and AJ Hinch are back after serving one-year bans stemming from the 2017 Houston Astros cheating scandal. Cora — fired by Boston shortly before last year’s camp opened — was re-hired by the Red Sox, where he won a title in 2018. Hinch, fired as Houston’s manager in the wake of his suspension, was hired to replace Ron Gardenhire in Detroit.

The only other new manager is a throwback — Tony La Russa, now in charge of the Chicago White Sox. Already a Hall of Famer, La Russa hasn’t managed since 2011, and his hiring was met by skepticism about his potential handling of modern players.

La Russa in particular is coming back to a different game. And while many recent changes haven’t been wholly popular with fans, the consensus is that all these adaptations are baseball’s best chance at normalcy.

“I actually liked both the seven-inning doubleheaders and the runner on second,” Oakland manager Bob Melvin wrote in a text to the AP. “I was skeptical at first, but they both were successful in my opinion.”

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AP Baseball Writer Janie McCauley contributed to this report.

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More AP MLB: https://apnews.com/MLB and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

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ROME (AP) — The Italian government on Sunday abruptly delayed opening Italy’s beloved ski season because a coronavirus variant was detected in a good portion of recently infected persons in the country.

Health Minister Roberto Speranza’s ordinance forbidding amateur skiing at least until March 5 effectively kills the hopes of ski lift operators and resort owners that they would be able to salvage part of the season. The ski business is a big source of winter tourism in Italy and the news came on the eve of the expected opening.

A ministry statement noted that analyses of virus samples indicated that a variant first found in Britain is sickening 17.8% of recently infected people in Italy.

France and Germany have adopted similar measures in the ski sector due to the “worry for the spread of this and other variants of the virus,” the statement said.

The ski industry swiftly lamented that they have repeatedly prepared slopes and lifts, only to have been denied permission to open, including just before the year-end holidays.

The day-old government of Premier Mario Draghi promised to quickly compensate the sector for economic losses.

Speranza was also the health minister in the previous government and is advised by a commission of technical and scientific experts about what activities can be safely allowed during efforts to rein in COVID-19 contagion.

Italy, with over 93,000 confirmed virus deaths, has Europe’s second-highest known death toll in the pandemic after Britain.

The president of the Italian Winter Sports Federation, Flavio Roda, slammed the last-minute timing of the decision.

“The (ski) stations have invested a lot to prepare the slopes, hire personnel, get organized with hoteliers. A lot of money was invested and yet again our world is heavily penalized,” he said.

Tourism and leisure travel has suffered in Italy for nearly a year since the COVID-19 outbreak struck the nation. International tourism dried up under the government’s anti-pandemic restrictions on travel from abroad. Travel is currently forbidden between Italy’s regions, except for work, health care or other grave reasons, further damaging the domestic tourism sector.

On Saturday, Speranza signed another ordinance, requiring anyone arriving from Austria, Italy’s neighbor to the north, to be tested for COVID-19 and quarantine themselves after entering Italy. That ordinance cited the circulation in Austria of a variant found in South Africa.

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Follow AP’s pandemic coverage at http://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic and https://apnews.com/coronavirus-vaccine and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak.

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College basketball’s bluebloods earned elite status through multiple championships, sustained traditions of winning and revolving doors of star players through their programs.

A new group of teams has inched closer to basketball royalty and has remained relatively steady even as the coronavirus pandemic has wreaked havoc on the sport.

Top-ranked Gonzaga, No. 5 Villanova and a handful of other programs may not have the historical resumes to compare to the bluebloods, but consistent success over the past decade — in some cases, more — puts them in a new category of dominating teams.

“What’s happened is, you have emerging new bloods,” ESPN college basketball analyst and former coach Seth Greenberg said. “It’s kind of semantics, kind of word play, but what they are is model programs for winning in the culture of college basketball today.”

Any list of college basketball bluebloods starts with Kentucky, Duke, North Carolina and Kansas. UCLA, the all-time leader with 11 national championships, and Indiana usually get the nod, too, though deep March runs have evaded them in recent years.

Michigan State has pushed toward blueblood status under coach Tom Izzo, winning a national championship in 2000 and reaching the Final Four eight times.

The new bloods have the recent consistency, just not over the long haul like the bluebloods.

Virginia won the 2019 national championship, has reached the NCAA Tournament seven of the past eight seasons and has six combined ACC regular-season and tournament titles since 2014.

Baylor is undefeated this season and has reached the Sweet 16 four times under coach Scott Drew.

UConn won two national titles in a decade but has not been to the NCAA Tournament since 2016. Louisville appears to be on the rise after a couple of down years.

Villanova and Gonzaga have been the new blood flag bearers.

The Wildcats have won three national championships, including two in a three-year span under coach Jay Wright. Villanova reached the NCAA Tournament in 14 of the past 15 years — excluding the pandemic-halted 2020 season — and in 2019 became the first team to win three consecutive Big East titles.

Gonzaga played in the 2017 national championship game, has nine Sweet 16 appearances and played in the NCAA Tournament every year there’s been one in 21 seasons under coach Mark Few. The Zags have won or shared 11 straight West Coast Conference regular-season titles, eclipsed 20 wins in 24 consecutive years and have dominated through an undefeated 2020-21 season.

“Those two find players who fit their programs,” Greenberg said. “There’s a standard to play there and neither of them has compromised their standards.”

The standards have allowed Villanova and Gonzaga to retain their consistency even when many of the traditional bluebloods are struggling through a pandemic-altered season.

Kentucky is 6-13 after beating Auburn on Saturday and is danger of missing the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2013. Kansas already has seven losses and recently had its record streak in the AP Top 25 end at 231 weeks.

Duke is 8-8 and on the NCAA Tournament bubble, in danger of missing March Madness for the first time since 1995. North Carolina is 12-7 following a loss to No. 9 Virginia and played rival Duke — a 91-87 win — when both were unranked for the first time since 1960.

Gonzaga and Villanova have had little trouble navigating the stops and starts of a pandemic season.

The Zags have plowed through one of the nation’s toughest schedules, beating Kansas, West Virginia, Iowa and Virginia — all ranked at the time — while turning their conference games into laughers.

The Wildcats stumbled in a 16-point loss to No. 19 Creighton on Saturday but are 11-3 and atop the Big East standings at 8-2.

The advantage for those two programs this season — and beyond — has been continuity.

The traditional bluebloods often rely on production from star freshmen and the truncated lead-up to this season cost them precious development time.

Villanova and Gonzaga typically have players who stick around for two or more seasons, so there’s almost always a core of returning players who know the system and the expectations. The lack of practice time before the season due to the pandemic had an impact on both teams, like it did every program, but the ramp-up had less complications because key players returned.

“Those coaches are great at developing young players through the summer and the fall,” Wright said. “Us, Gonzaga and Baylor have been fortunate this year that we have a lot of veteran players.”

It’s kept the new bloods moving forward while the bluebloods have been sinking during the pandemic.

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AP Sports Writer Dan Gelston in Philadelphia contributed to this report.

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LOS ANGELES — The rates of new coronavirus infections and hospitalizations continue to fall across California, but the state’s death toll remains persistently high.

California on Sunday reported another 408 deaths, bringing the total since the outbreak began to more than 46,840 — the highest in the nation.

Despite the grim death count, health officials are confident that California is emerging from its worst surge of the pandemic.

The number of patients in hospitals with COVID-19 slipped below 9,000 statewide, a drop of more than a third over two weeks.

The 8,842 new confirmed cases are more than 80% below the mid-December peak of about 54,000.

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THE VIRUS OUTBREAK:

Scientists say it’s still too early to predict the future of the coronavirus, but many doubt it will ever go away entirel y. The average of new U.S. virus cases has dipped below 100,000 a day for the first time in months. With more vaccines available, business owners wonder whether to require employees to be inoculated. Disability groups are pleading for the vaccine. Japan has formally approved its first COVID-19 vaccine. With street parties banned, Brazil Carnival goes online.

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Follow all of AP’s pandemic coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic, https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccine and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak

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HERE’S WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING:

ROME — On the eve of what was supposed to finally be the much-delayed opening of Italy’s ski slopes, the government yanked permission because high circulation of a coronavirus variant.

Health Minister Roberto Speranza’s ordinance on Sunday forbidding amateur skiing at least until March 5 effectively kills hopes of ski lift operators and resort owners to salvage at least some of the season.

The ministry noted that analyses of virus samples indicate that a variant found in Britain is present in 17.8% of recently infected people in Italy.

The ski industry swiftly complained that operators have repeatedly prepared facilities only to be denied permission, as Italy’s crucial tourism industry takes another blow.

The day-old government of Premier Mario Draghi promised to quickly compensate the ski sector for economic losses.

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MEXICO CITY — Mexico received a shipment of 870,000 AstraZeneca vaccine doses from a plant in India Sunday and laid out plans to vaccinate elderly people in the country’s poorest, most remote areas first.

Mexico has so far used Pfizer shots to vaccinate frontline health workers, but has nearly run out of those. So the government will start applying its first doses of the AstraZeneca shot, which it purchased at $4 each.

Critics say it would be quicker and more efficient to start vaccination efforts in the worst-hit urban areas, where the elderly live closer together. But the government announced plans to send teams by truck, plane and helicopter to 330 outlying townships.

“The decision has been made to start in the most remote, marginalized towns with the country’s poorest population,” said President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

Mexico hopes to get enough vaccines from Pfizer, Russia, China and India to vaccinate all Mexicans over 60 by mid-April.

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LONDON — U.K. government scientific advisers say the COVID-19 variant now predominant in the country may be up to 70% more deadly than previous variants, underscoring concerns about how mutations may change the characteristics of the disease.

The findings from the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group, published Friday on the government’s website, build on preliminary research released Jan. 21. The group includes experts from universities and public agencies across the U.K.

The new report is based on analysis of a dozen studies that found the so-called Kent variant, named after the county where it was first identified, is likely 30% to 70% more deadly than other variants. The studies compared hospitalization and death rates among people infected with the variant and those infected with other variants.

The results of the analysis are worrisome, said Dr. David Strain, a clinical senior lecturer at the University of Exeter Medical School and the clinical lead for COVID at the Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital.

“The higher transmissibility means that people who were previously at low risk of catching COVID (particularly younger fitter females) are now catching it and ending up in hospital,″ Strain said. “This is highlighted by the latest figures for hospitalization that now suggest almost 50:50 male to female ratio compared to this being predominantly in men during the first wave.″

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ANCHORAGE, Alaska — School officials in Alaska have implemented a new policy requiring masks at sporting events last week in response to coronavirus outbreaks at a half-dozen Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District schools.

The Anchorage Daily News reported Friday that three large high schools in the district — Colony, Palmer, Wasilla — are among five facilities currently closed because of the outbreaks.

It is unclear when they are expected to reopen.

Public health officials say some of the confirmed COVID-19 cases started with students mixing at school lunches, but most are attributed to extracurricular activities, including sports.

Claudia Blydenburgh, assistant principal and activities director at Joe Redington Sr. Junior/Senior High School, said student-athletes would rather wear the masks than not participate.

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PRAGUE — The Czech government has re-declared its state of emergency for next two weeks to be able to effectively tackle the coronavirus pandemic in one of the hardest hit European countries.

The decision has been approved in defiance of the lower house of Parliament, which has refused the government’s request to extend the tool that gives the Cabinet extra powers necessary to impose and keep in place strict nationwide restrictive measures and limit people’s rights.

Some lawyers and politicians say the government’s move violates the country’s Constitution.

The current state of emergency would expire on Sunday. The government could use other legal options to reimpose some measures but not all of them.

That means bars, restaurants and cafes would reopen Monday as well as services could return to business while the nighttime curfew and a ban for more than two people to gather in public would be cancelled.

The government warned that would worsen the pandemic and might cause the health system to collapse.

Sunday’s move comes at the request of the heads of governments of all 14 Czech regions who say have not enough powers to fight the pandemic.

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HONOLULU — Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi has extended coronavirus restrictions through mid-March, but said that could change if confirmed cases remain low.

Blangiardi said during a news conference on Friday that he believes he is being realistic and is managing expectations following potential coronavirus superspreader events like the Super Bowl and Valentine’s Day.

Blangiardi said he will shift the island to the next reopening stage before March 15 if numbers remain low.

Some business owners have disagreed with the decision, arguing their businesses are still struggling.

Meanwhile, the city extended the deadline to renew driver’s licenses, state identification cards and permits to mid-April in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

As of Friday, Hawaii has had 26,743 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 425 deaths since the pandemic began in March.

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UNDATED — Though many people with disabilities are more vulnerable to COVID-19, in some U.S. states they’re being left behind in the massive effort to get limited vaccines into the arms of those who need them most.

People with disabilities have been pushed down the priority list in places such as North Carolina and California, where the state reversed course after days of public pressure.

In Minnesota, parents are begging unsuccessfully to give their vaccination spots to their children whose Down syndrome makes them up to 10 times more likely to die if they catch the virus.

A trade group for disability service providers found 20 states haven’t explicitly placed people with disabilities on their priority lists.

People with intellectual and developmental disabilities are often immunocompromised, putting them at greater risk for complications if they get sick. They’re also more likely to lose their jobs, can have a harder time with mask-wearing and social distancing, and have had to worry about whether they would be less likely to get critical care at hospitals.

Many have also had to make do with less help, since caregivers can be an infection risk.

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LONDON — The U.K. government said Sunday that it reached its goal of giving at least one COVID-19 vaccine shot to at least 15 million of the most vulnerable people in the country by mid-February, increasing pressure on ministers to clarify when they will ease a lockdown imposed in early January.

More than 15 million people, or 22% of the U.K. population, have received their first shot. The figure includes most people in the government’s top four priority groups, including everyone over 75, frontline healthcare workers and nursing home staff and residents.

“15,000,000! Amazing team,″ Nadhim Zahawi, the vaccines minister, said in a tweet that featured a red heart and three syringes. “We will not rest till we offer the vaccine to the whole of phase1 the 1-9 categories of the most vulnerable & all over 50s by end April and then all adults.″

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson plans to unveil his roadmap for easing restrictions on Feb. 22 amid signs that infection rates, hospitalizations and deaths have fallen sharply since England’s third national lockdown began on Jan. 4.

Johnson said in England, everyone in the four top priority groups had been offered the vaccine. He plans to release further details on the vaccination effort on Monday.

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NEW YORK — Millions of New Yorkers with health conditions that leave them at high risk of illness from COVID-19 can theoretically sign up for appointments at state-run vaccination sites starting Sunday, but a lack of vaccine supply means many will be frustrated in their search for a shot.

Seven million New Yorkers, including health care workers and people over 65, were already eligible for vaccinations under previous state rules. About 3 million people over 16 with so-called comorbidities will become eligible starting Monday.

In order to be vaccinated, people will have to provide a doctor’s letter, a signed certification or other medical information showing they have an eligible health condition.

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PARIS — An enormous plastic sheet in the shape of a heart was unfurled Sunday on the plaza outside Paris City Hall, inscribed with messages of inspiration and love on a Valentine’s Day shadowed by the pandemic.

With French restaurants, bars, tourist sites and borders closed to keep the virus at bay, lovers had to be more creative than usual to celebrate the holiday this year.

Despite a glacial European cold snap, a few scattered couples embraced on Paris bridges.

One pair bravely took selfies on the plaza overlooking the Eiffel Tower, as wind buffeted their heart-shaped red balloon.

The pandemic didn’t totally kill the holiday spirit – business was brisk at Parisian chocolate and flower shops, which are allowed to stay open.

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ATLANTA — Coronavirus cases continue to decline in the U.S. after a winter surge.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University say the seven-day average of new coronavirus cases in the country dropped below 100,000 on Friday for the first time since November 4. It stayed below 100,000 again on Saturday.

The seven-day average was well above 200,000 for much of December and went to roughly 250,000 in January, as the pandemic came roaring back after it had been tamed in some places over the summer.

Meanwhile, the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Rochelle Walensky, told CNN on Sunday that CDC guidelines provide more flexibility in opening schools as disease rates in the community come down.

The CDC released its long-awaited roadmap for getting students back to classrooms during the pandemic on Friday. It said in-person schooling can resume safely with masks, social distancing and other strategies, and vaccination of teachers, while important, is not a prerequisite for reopening.

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PARIS – French President Emmanuel Macron is urging stepped-up international efforts to get vaccines to poor countries, and wants China and Russia more involved.

While France’s own vaccination program has suffered from delivery delays and bureaucratic troubles, Macron told the Journal du Dimanche newspaper in an interview published Sunday that “African countries are asking us, justifiably, about their access to vaccines.”

Macron met with global pharmaceutical CEOs and vaccine experts in recent days to discuss programs to fight vaccine inequality, to help end the pandemic and revive economies faster. Among those programs is the U.N.-backed COVAX, which has suffered a slow start because of funding shortages and lack of commitment from some major world powers.

“We must speed up this effort further because each week counts,” Macron was quoted as saying. He also said vaccines made in China and Russia should be “integrated into this great multilateral effort against the pandemic.”

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PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) — Kosovo’s main opposition party appeared headed to a landslide victory in Sunday’s early election of a new parliament held amid the coronavirus pandemic, an economic downturn and stalled negotiations with wartime foe Serbia.

With 65% of the votes counted by the central Election Commission, the main governing election body, the left-wing Self-Determination Movement Party, or Vetevendosje, had 48% of the votes. It led two center-right parties — the Democratic Party of Kosovo, or PDK, which had 18%, and the Democratic League of Kosovo, or LDK, with 14%.

Hundreds of Vetevendosje supporters defied calls from the party leadership “to celebrate at home, with the family” and gathered at the Mother Teresa Square in Pristina chanting, dancing and launching firecrackers while vehicles blowing horns drove around the center.

“We are here to celebrate the liberation of our government and our people,” said Ali Shilova, a Vetevendosje! supporter. “We are the people of this country who will take over and make it for everybody, not just for people who are in power.”

Acting Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti of the LDK had yet to concede defeat.

Some 1.8 million voters cast ballots to choose 120 lawmakers among more than 1,000 candidates from 28 political groups and few irregularities were reported. Some 100,000 Kosovars abroad were also eligible to vote by post. Those infected with coronavirus could vote through mobile polling teams.

Voter turnout was estimated at 47%, which was 2.5% higher than the last election in 2019, according to the Central Election Commission.

“Today Kosovo showed how elections should be held, despite the many challenges it faced,” said Valdete Daka, election commission chief.

Police considered the process as “calm and without serious incidents.”

Voters defied minus 10 degrees Celsius (14 Fahrenheit) temperature and snowfall to cast their ballots.

Albin Kurti, leader of the Self-Determination Movement party, would form a government if the vote figures held up.

The new Cabinet will face the challenge of bringing the poor country’s economy back on its feet and reducing unemployment after battling back the pandemic, as well as fighting organized crime and corruption.

“A lot of challenges lie ahead,” Kurti told The Associated Press.

Negotiations on normalizing ties with Serbia, which stalled again last year after talks brokered by the U.S. and the European Union, have not figured high on any party’s agenda.

The election was scheduled after Kosovo’s Constitutional Court rendered invalid a vote by a convicted lawmaker who helped confirm Hoti’s Cabinet named in June after Kurti was removed as prime minister.

In Serb-dominated northern Kosovo, Belgrade asked Serbs to support the Serb List party. One voting commissioner in northern Mitrovica complained that Serbs were voting two or three times. Daka said prosecutors were investigating.

Kosovo’s Serb minority has 10 seats in parliament and 10 other seats belong to other minorities.

The European Union sent monitors to watch the vote.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, a decade after a brutal 1998-1999 war between separatist ethnic Albanian rebels and Serb forces. The war ended in June 1999 after a 78-day NATO air campaign drove Serb troops out and a peacekeeping force moved in.

Most Western nations have recognized Kosovo, but Serbia and its allies Russia and China do not. Tensions over Kosovo remain a source of volatility in the Balkans.

Within two months of taking their seats in parliament, Kosovo’s lawmakers must elect the country’s president. If no candidate is elected after three rounds of voting, the country might see an early presidential election.

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