The contagious virus has spread to the continent of Europe and is particularly bad in northern Italy, where there are currently more than eleven towns in lock down after the outbreak.
Both Ireland’s men’s and women’s six nations games against Italy set to be held in Dublin on the 7th and 8th of March have been postponed because of the recent outbreak of corona virus.
The health minister for Ireland, Mr Simon Harris argued that the game should not go ahead as he met with the IRFU (Irish Rugby Football Union) on Wednesday to discuss. The IRFU gave a statement addressing the issue: "At the outset we made it clear that the IRFU was supportive of the government's need to protect public health in relation to the corona virus.
Many fixtures coming up include Italy’s rugby team travelling round Europe for the six nations as well as a friendly for England’s football team against the Italian side in late March. All these games are at risk of being postponed due to the contagious virus for the protection of the supporters and players, also the areas as it could spread from overseas and potentially create multiple cases.
Many people are extremely concerned that the continued rapid spread of the virus could effect even more events later in the year for 2020 for example the Euros for football which is held all over the continent with the finals at Wembley as well as huge global events such as the Tokyo Olympics. McClosky told the BBC :"It is important to remember there was a huge clamour for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games to be cancelled because of the Zika virus outbreak, but those Games went ahead without any problem”. The statement has reassured athletes and supporters that a cancellation is off the cards at this stage and that all events will have to take extreme precautions when organizing.
