Penn State football doctor: 30-35% of covid-19-positive Big Ten athletes had myocarditis

New data helps illustrate what Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren might have meant when he described “too much medical uncertainty and too many unknown health risks” as reasons for postponing the Big Ten’s 2020-21 fall sports season.

During a State College Area school board of directors meeting on Monday night, Wayne Sebastianelli — Penn State’s director of athletic medicine — made some alarming comments about the link between covid-19 and myocarditis, particularly in Big Ten athletes. Sebastianelli said that cardiac MRI scans revealed that about a third of Big Ten athletes who tested positive for covid-19 appeared to have myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle that can be fatal if left unchecked.

“When we looked at our covid-positive athletes, whether they were symptomatic or not, 30 to roughly 35 percent of their heart muscles (are) inflamed,” Sebastianelli said. “And we really just don’t know what to do with it right now. It’s still very early in the infection. Some of that has led to the Pac-12 and the Big Ten’s decision to sort of put a hiatus on what’s happening.”

On Thursday, Penn State addressed the doctor’s comments.

“During his discussion with board members, (Sebastianelli) recalled initial preliminary data that had been verbally shared by a colleague on a forthcoming study, which unbeknownst to him at the time had been published at a lower rate,” Scott Gilbert, a spokesman for the school’s health department, told ESPN’s Kyle Bonagura. “The research was not conducted by Dr. Sebastianelli or Penn State. Dr. Sebastianelli wishes to clarify this point, and apologize for any confusion.”

Gilbert said the doctor’s comments did not relate directly to Penn State student athletes. “At this time, there have been no cases of myocarditis in covid-19 positive student-athletes at Penn State,” he said.

A day before the Big Ten announced its decision to postpone its fall sports season on Aug. 11, ESPN reported that the long-term effects of myocarditis had been discussed in meetings of presidents and chancellors, commissioners and athletic directors, and health advisory board members from the Big Ten and other conferences around the country.

“You could have a very high-level athlete who’s got a very superior VO2 max and cardiac output who gets infected with covid and can drop his or her VO2 max and cardiac output just by 10 percent, and that could make them go from elite status to average status,” Sebastianelli said. “We don’t know that. We don’t know how long that’s going to last. What we have seen is when people have been studied with cardiac MRI scans — symptomatic and asymptomatic covid infections — is a level of inflammation in cardiac muscle that just is alarming.”

Neither Penn State nor the Big Ten responded to the Centre Daily Times’ requests for comment.

“I have had no direct conversation with (Penn State) President (Eric) Barron on this topic,” Sebastianelli said in an email, “but needless to say we all have concerns for the health and safety of every PSU student-athlete, as well as those at every level of competition; this is a public health issue.”