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The COVID-19 pandemic is a potential threat to professional sporting events when they eventually return to their usual calendar with spectators’ capacity of football stadiums usually exceeding 40,000 seats for important events. Hence, a strategy for safe return to sporting events is needed in the COVID-19 pandemic to pave the way towards a new normalcy. We reviewed the guidelines and policies implemented in organising the Amir Cup Football Final of Qatar, which hosted about 20,000 fans. The authors evaluated the publicly available information on the official websites of the various organizations involved and highlight the importance and usefulness of the Covid-19 Rapid Antigen Assay-Kit as a tool for screening sports spectators as well as the importance of a rigorous spectator pathway, including their accurate traceability thanks to a specific mobile phone application. Despite the surging of COVID-19 all over the world, a big football event with around 20,000 spectators in the same stadium has been hosted under strongly controlled preventative measures. These preventative measures show that it is possible to organize a major football match held outdoors, with the presence of thousands of supporters. This article is a call for action for the organisers of such events where the supporters’ health status is traceable to provide the scientific community with actual data of post-event infection rates. Therefore, it is suggested to consider using procedures like the ones described in the present article as a potential model in the process of organizing big sporting events with spectators in times of COVID-19.

Objectives: This study aimed to assess the diurnal variation of short term maximal performance and biological markers of hormonal [cortisol (CRT), testosterone (TST), melatonin (MLT)], biochemical [creatine phosphokinase (CPK), blood glucose (GLC), uric acid (UA)] and hematological [white blood cells (WBC), monocytes (MO), neutrophils (NE), lymphocytes (LY), red blood cells (RBC), hemoglobin (HB), hematocrit (HMT)] parameters in male police officers. Methods: Twenty male police officers performed a running-based anaerobic sprint test (RAST) at two different times of the day (TOD), in the morning (6:00 h - 7:00 h) and evening (19:00 - 20:00) where blood samples were collected from the participants on these two occasions before each exercise session. Results: Short term maximal performance [Peak power (PP), average power (AP) and minimal power (MP)] was higher in the evening as compared to the morning. It was noted that biological markers of hormonal, biochemical and hematological parameters exhibit diurnal fluctuation. Some of them peak in the morning (MLT, CRT, TST, UA, RBC, HB, and HMT) and others peak in the evening (GLC, CPK, WBC, NE, LY, and MO). Conclusions: Short term maximal performance, hormonal, biochemical and hematological parameters were strongly affected by the TOD in police officers. Thus, understanding changes in short term maximal exercice and these circulating mediators during different TOD provide a better understanding of the anaerobic metabolism and could help modulate and quantify training load.

Background: With increasing number of international travellers taking flights and the need of stringent quarantine regulations across the globe in view of the COVID-19 pandemic, it has become a mandatory requirement for many airlines and countries to have a COVID-19 RT-PCR Negative certificate for travellers within a time-specific period prior to boarding flights. Method: As the demand for RT-PCR testing in this group of asymptomatic well individuals who are planning to travel is increasing, they present to COVID testing centres for their swab tests, where suspected COVID patients also attend, thereby increasing the risk of exposure of these healthy people to possibly infected individuals. Hence, the Ministry of Public Health (MOPH) in Qatar implemented “Drive-Thru” swabbing hubs to address this potential issue. We analysed the usefulness of this MOPH initiative and how it has helped tackle the challenge. Results and Conclusion: With a reduced risk of exposure for travellers to potentially suspected COVID-19 patients in COVID centres, the “Drive-Thru” swabbing hubs have been a pragmatic, welcome and wonderful initiative. This has contributed to curb the spread of COVID-19 by facilitating easy testing thereby alleviating anxiety in travellers as well as reducing the burden of an exponentially increasing number of travellers presenting to COVID centres.

The aim of this study was to explore the effect of the lunar cycle and time of day on short-term maximal performance, wellness and mood state. Twenty healthy active men performed a running anaerobic sprint test (RAST) at four sessions (full moon (FM) and new moon (NM) in the morning and in the evening). Before each testing session, participants completed a rating scale of mood states (POMS) and a psychometric rating scale of perceived wellness (Hooper's questionnaire). Rating of perceived exertion (RPE) was collected just after the RAST. A higher rating of sleep was observed in FM compared to NM upon the morning and the evening (FM morning vs. NM morning, p < .01; d = 1.38) and (FM evening vs. NM evening, p < .001; d = 2.62). POMS subscales data revealed no significant lunar cycle effect. Peak power (PP), average power (AP) and minimal power (MP) were greater in the evening following NM compared to FM (NM evening vs. FM evening, p< .01