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There has been much discussion during the coronavirus pandemic about when and how professional sports can return, but one thing has become increasingly clear: The likelihood of packing arenas with tens of thousands of fans any time in the near future, if at all this year, is fast approaching near-zero percent.

According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, NBA executives and “many in sports” believe not only that leagues cannot open their doors until there is widespread availability of rapid-response testing, but that those doors will not be opened to fans until the development of a similarly accessible COVID-19 vaccine.

“Economically, it may bankrupt them not to play, but in the end I don’t think it’s going to be their decision,” Wojnarowski told Scott Van Pelt on “SportsCenter” on Thursday night. “This pandemic is going to decide.”

How do leagues plan to address this issue with fans?

This only reinforces the stark contrast between the NBA and NFL responses to the pandemic.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has instructed his charges to virtually conduct business as usual in silence, and the league is planning to start the 2020 season on schedule with fans filling stadiums as early as the Aug. 6 Hall of Fame Game and no contingencies currently in place. Conversely, NBA commissioner Adam Silver has conceded that this season could be lost entirely and next season impacted as well, all as the league office considers alternatives, such as finishing its 2020 campaign without fans at a single site.

Granted, the NBA was in the midst of its season when the coronavirus began to spread across the United States, and the NFL will be the last of the major American sports leagues needing to make firm decisions about its 2020 season. But the thought of fans packing stands seems so far from a possibility right now.

View photos NBA commissioner Adam Silver is considering alternatives that include resuming play without fans. (Stacy Revere/Getty Images) More

When will a vaccine become available?

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, has maintained his projection that the development of a vaccine will likely take between 12 and 18 months due to a lengthy trial phase. Oddly enough, Fauci addressed this issue during an Instagram Live Q&A with Golden State Warriors superstar Stephen Curry late last month.

“We have started on the development of a vaccine faster than ever in the history of any virus, from the time it was discovered to the time we actually made it and put it into a trial,” Fauci told Curry. “But when you test the vaccine it takes multiple phases. The first thing you got to do is make sure it’s safe. We started that a couple of weeks ago. … Phase 2 is pretrial to determine if it works. That’s the thing that’s going to take an additional eight months or so. So when you add up the three or four months for Phase 1 plus the seven or eight months, you get about a year to a year and a half. “If we really push, we hope that we will know by the time we get into next winter whether or not we have something that works. A vaccine is going to be totally relevant if it cycles into another season, which quite frankly I think it’s going to do because this virus is very, very transmissible. … I cannot imagine it’s just going to disappear. So vaccines are going to be important the next time around, not for what we’re dealing with now.”

Medical experts abroad have called for relaxed testing regulations to expedite the development of a vaccine by several months, and President Donald Trump has pledged to “slash red tape like nobody has ever done it before” when it comes to getting “very important things to the market — medical.” Some U.S. health officials have cautioned against fast-tracking a vaccine, citing past cases and unknown side effects.