A Wall Street Journal report on Tuesday says the San Francisco 49ers' loss to the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl 54 in early February likely saved lives, since it prevented the California team from celebrating a victory with a parade attracting tens of thousands.

The 49ers held a 10-point lead midway through the 4th quarter in Miami, but the Chiefs' high-powered offense eventually took over to propel Kansas City to its first Super Bowl victory in 50 years.

The result meant that San Francisco did not host a Super Bowl victory parade in the populous Bay Area, which would have taken place just as the coronavirus was spreading.

"It may go down in the annals as being a brutal sports loss, but one that may have saved lives," said Bob Wachter, the chairman of the University of California, San Francisco Department of Medicine.

"It would not have taken much spread in early February for the thing to have gotten way out of hand," Wachter added. "That would've been enough to light the fire."

The U.S. death toll from the coronavirus stands at 23,607, according to a New York Times tracker.

But California, a state of 40 million people, has had just 641 deaths so far.