A message popped into the Timberwolves’ internal communications app from Robby Sikka, the team’s vice president of basketball performance and technology.



After a reminder to players, coaches and staff that a new flu vaccine was available to combat the strain of the illness that was most prevalent at the time, Sikka underscored the importance of washing hands and avoiding close contact with those who are sick as a means of avoiding something called “the coronavirus.”



The date was Jan. 25, three weeks after China first informed the World Health Organization it was studying cases of an unknown illness, four days after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed the first case in the United States and seven weeks before the spread of the novel coronavirus worldwide shut down Italy, brought professional sports in the U.S. to their collective knees and introduced the term “social distancing” into the lexicon.



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