key: cord-0729329-7a076c90
authors: Hossien Mehrsafar, Amir; Gazerani, Parisa; Moghadam Zadeh, Ali; Carlos Jaenes Sánchez, José
title: Addressing potential impact of COVID-19 pandemic on physical and mental health of elite athletes
date: 2020-05-06
journal: Brain Behav Immun
DOI: 10.1016/j.bbi.2020.05.011
sha: 2347878195092a54b18d931ec5723baec2ef6ecb
doc_id: 729329
cord_uid: 7a076c90

nan

a. Department of Sport Psychology, Faculty of Sport Sciences, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran. 

The COVID-19 infection has recently been found to seriously suppress the neuroendocrine-strategies. The pathological influence of COVID-19 on these interactions and responses suggests stress 61 vulnerability that might be detectable by immune and stress bio markers (Simpson & Katsanis, 2020) .

Periods of inactivity, isolation from athletic teams, distance from the athletic community, less qualified 63 interactions with athletic coaches, and lack of social support (e.g., fans, sports organizations, media, etc.) World-class athletes might not face financial problems, but the cancellation of leagues and 81 competitions that are a source of income will greatly affect many teams around the globe (Toresdahl &   82 Asif, 2020). While teams and coaches might try to find ways to save elite athletes first, lower-level 83 athletes are prone to more challenges under these conditions. Therefore, governments must consider prevention strategies for the future. Learning from the past economic crises caused by previous 86 pandemics, planning for the current situation, and eventual future prevention strategies would seem to 87 require the establishment of a specific task force.

In summary, in critical situations, health authorities and sport communities must identify their 89 priorities and make plans to maintain athletes' health and athletic activities. Several aspects play an 90 important role in prioritization and strategic planning, e.g., physical and mental health, distribution of 91 resources, and short to long-term environmental considerations.

Funding: the authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the 94 public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

Competing interests: none declared.

Contributors: all the authors discussed the idea and contributed to writing the paper. 

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