Sports games are back, and the covid restrictions have become much more lenient due to the rate of covid cases decreasing in the United States, however; the current restrictions are still much more strict compared to restaurants and schools.  

  With about 22,000 people allowed to sit along with around 30,000 cardboard cutouts of fans in the stands at the Superbowl, it comes with a large drawback from the usual number of attendees being over 70,000 people.  

  According to nfl.com, players for the NFL are not required to wear masks during games. However, players on the sidelines who are not substituting or preparing to enter the game and are not wearing a helmet must wear a mask or a double-layered gaiter.  

  Post-game interactions between opposing players or team staff are limited as well. Players and team personnel must also wear masks and may briefly exchange greetings before promptly proceeding to their locker rooms. 

  Players were very limited in where they could go and people they could interact with. Those who don’t remain in their “bubble” will be unable to play, as seen by Danuel House Jr, NBA player, who had violated this protocol by having a visitor in his hotel room and was made to leave the NBA campus in September 2020.  

  While sports members are punished for seeing someone outside of their “bubble,” restaurants are one of the most likely places for a COVID-19 outbreak to occur, and yet they have fewer restrictions.

  All restaurant workers are required to wear a mask while they work, along with restricting the capacity of customers so they are 6 feet apart when inside and outside. 

  There have barely been any new restrictions for restaurants other than wearing masks and limiting capacity. Employees should have already been properly cleaning the tables and dishes before any restrictions came into place, along with having employees washing their hands and being careful not to get any bodily fluids in a customer’s food, so those are not additional restrictions   

  Basically, restaurants do not have enough restrictions, as shown by the number of cases caught by both customers and staff over the past year. However, most of those cases were due to customers eating indoors while carrying the virus. It should be more difficult for anyone to eat inside a restaurant, such as making people have a temperature check when they walk indoors.  

  Schools are even doing more than restaurants: having students complete a survey before entering the building, having around 25% of the total student body in the building at a time, changing the directions students can move in the hallways and closing the school between groups of students to deep clean the building.  

  However, even schools don’t have as many restrictions as professional sports teams like the NFL and NBA. There is more of a penalty if a team member is to break social distancing, not allowing them to play for the remainder of the season. While in schools, students and staff who came in contact with the virus are required to stay home for 15 days before they may return to the building and resume a hybrid schedule as before, not stay home the rest of the year. 

  While the number of cases may be going down, if restrictions become more lenient and more things open to the public again, people are going to speed out of their homes and into more public interactions; ultimately causing the cases to jump up once more and creating a never-ending cycle. The restrictions for everyone should be just as strict as professional sports until most of the public is vaccinated; to prevent any future cycles and county-wide shutdowns.