How the 49ers' Super Bowl loss may have slowed the spread of coronavirus

The backdrop: Medical experts had only identified a few cases of the virus in the U.S. on Feb. 2 — the day of the Super Bowl — but Santa Clara County in California reported its second case that morning.

• Neighboring San Benito County also confirmed person-to-person transmission of the virus between a man who’d recently traveled to Wuhan, China, and his wife later that day.

What they're saying: “It may go down in the annals as being a brutal sports loss, but one that may have saved lives," Bob Wachter, the chair of UCSF’s department of medicine, told WSJ.

The big picture: San Francisco is considered the model for containing the virus early in the U.S. and flattening the curve of patients admitted to emergency rooms.

• The Bay Area has reported more than 5,300 cases and 146 deaths from the virus, according to Johns Hopkins University data.