Lee Kaplan, M.D., is the chief of the UHealth Sports Medicine Division and director of the University of Miami Sports Medicine Institute. Dr. Kaplan is the medical director and head team physician of University of Miami Athletics and medical director and team physician for the Miami Marlins major league baseball team. He is a board-certified orthopedic surgeon and a professor of orthopedics, biomedical engineering, and kinesiology and sports sciences at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. Dr. Kaplan is a renowned specialist in the sports-related knee, shoulder, and elbow injuries, and arthroscopic surgery. He earned his medical degree from The George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
“I think if the kids are using the appropriate situations, their parents are – there's a higher risk probable if they go out and get pizza afterward and they laugh and carrying on rather than playing baseball at Lacrosse.”
- Re-Opening Pro Sports and Economies After COVID: Newswise Live Event
“It becomes this sort of sentiment that maybe this threat wasn’t that bad to begin with, especially in contrast to what we’re feeling now. So, I think what we need to do is empower people to realize that – what our experts tell us is, if you look historically at pandemics, the second waves hit pretty strongly for those reasons.”
- Re-Opening Pro Sports and Economies After COVID: Newswise Live Event
"I think the general concern about playing competition and whether you're going to pick up exposure to Covid-19 is ubiquitous among it, but each of these are very different. I think even in the pro sports they are different. So, the University of Miami, there are a lot of rules for the college athletes in terms of what they're dealing. There's a high level of exposure of college students just meeting in the dorms and their living conditions whereas for instance I was talking to an NBA player today and the whole idea that they're going to go to Orlando, they're much more restricted in terms of who they're going to be around and somebody that's in college and their comings and goings. As it relates to baseball – we take care of the Miami Marlins, and in baseball although the team may be limited, they aren’t going to live in their own homes, they're going to travel. So each of them are little unique based on the sport."
- Re-Opening Pro Sports and Economies After COVID: Newswise Live Event