“This virus is new,” said Panagis Galiatsatos, a pulmonary and critical care physician at Johns Hopkins. He cautions that long-term consequences for survivors can only be measured at six months and that, for some afflicted, the virus significantly damages lungs and causes blood clots. Galiatsatos believes that the majority of patients will rebound to baseline, but a minority won’t.
Several NBA head coaches are older than 65, including the San Antonio Spurs’ Gregg Popovich, who is 71, and the Houston Rockets’ Mike D’Antoni, who is 69. Employers with at least 15 employees must provide reasonable accommodations to ADA-protected employees so that they can perform the essential functions of their jobs. Yet employers aren’t required to alter core job duties. A demand for an accommodation that would essentially change the job will typically be deemed unreasonable.
A coach who suffers lasting damage from COVID-19 might be able to offer a more compelling argument. While coaching can be physically taxing, coaches can generally perform their jobs with less exertion and contact than players. Depending on the sport, referees and umpires fall somewhere in between. Silver’s comments were also clarified by Dallas Mavericks head coach Rick Carlisle, the president of the NBA Coaches Association. In an interview with ESPN, Carlisle said he spoke with Silver and was assured that age is not the sole factor in evaluating potential health and safety measures.