Another NHL mumps outbreak amid close quarters
The return of the mumps has caught some NHL players by surprise, and they are counting on the league being better equipped to deal with the second such outbreak in a little more than two years.
On Monday, the Minnesota Wild announced forwards Zach Parise and Jason Pominville and assistant coach Scott Stevens were diagnosed with the highly contagious disease and must miss at least three games.
In Vancouver, public-health officials have yet to determine where or how Canucks players contracted mumps, Vancouver Coastal Health spokesman Gavin Wilson said.
Wilson added that the Vancouver region is not showing any signs of a spike in the mumps virus, unlike neighboring Washington State, which had a reported 503 cases already in 2017, as opposed to 48 last year.
From Jan. 1 through Jan. 28, the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention said there have been 485 mumps infections reported in the United States, which already surpasses the 229 cases reported in 2012.
Since 2000, there have been only two years — 2006 and 2016 — in which the number of mumps cases have topped 3,000.
The CDC notes that though mumps are “no longer very common” in the U.S., outbreaks do occur, particularly in places where people have had prolonged close contact with a person with the virus, such as schools, dorms or sports arenas.