The NCAA relayed its latest guidelines for playing a pandemic, and it also sounded an alarm: The prospect of having a fall semester with soccer and other sports seems bleak.
If games can continue, the NCAA says college athletes should be tested for COVID-19 no more than 72 hours before playing, players with high-risk exposures to the coronavirus should be quarantined for 14 days, and all who are on the bench must wear a mask.
The nation’s largest governing body for college sports released an updated guideline Thursday to help member schools navigate the competition, but it comes as the pandemic continues. Across the country, the number of COVID-19 cases is on the rise, and many states have delayed reopening or reinstated social distancing restrictions in some companies.
“This document presents the advice of healthcare professionals on how to resume college sports if we can achieve an environment where COVID-19 rates are manageable,” NCAA President Mark Emmert said in a statement. Today, sadly, the data is pointing in the wrong direction. If there are going to be college sports in the fall, we need to better manage the pandemic. ”
The recommendations were developed by the NCAA COVID-19 Advisory Panel, Autonomy-5 Medical Advisory Group, which represents ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC, and other medical groups.
The Autonomy-5 or Power Five conferences are also intended to provide their own similar guidance to schools. The Associated Press obtained a copy of that document, which has not been finalized, and Sports Illustrated reported for the first time. Even before the NCAA announcement, the American Athletic Conference said it planned to require its schools to meet or exceed the NCAA’s guidance.
Among the highlights of the NCAA recommendations:
– Test results must be obtained within 72 hours of competition for athletes competing in so-called high-risk contact sports such as soccer, basketball, hockey, and lacrosse.
– Face shields should be integrated into sports whenever possible.
– Masks should be worn by everyone on a sideline, even when an athlete moves off the field of play to interact with a coach.
– CDC guidelines should be used to determine when people can resume their activities after testing positive for COVID-19. The time-based strategy means isolation up to 72 hours after recovery and at least 10 days after the first symptoms appeared.
– All people with high-risk exposure must be quarantined for 14 days.
The end point could be crucial to managing a team this season. Simply being considered a close contact of someone who tests positive could leave players out for two weeks.
At this point, however, hopes for a fall college football season are dwindling. Plans are already being made to modify it.
Big Ten and Pac-12 announced last week that they would play only conference games in soccer and other sports to help minimize potential disruptions caused by COVID-19.
The Big East joined those leagues Thursday by going only to the conference for the fall season, which for the basketball-focused league includes men’s and women’s soccer, cross country, volleyball, and men’s and women’s field hockey.
Other FBS conferences have yet to decide on the schedule formats for the upcoming soccer season, but wait until the end of July. The regular season is slated to begin around the Labor Day weekend, with dozens of games scheduled for September 3 and 7.
“Right now we would like to buy as much time as possible,” AAC Commissioner Mike Aresco told Sports Talk 790 in Houston.
Meanwhile, the Middle East Athletic Conference became Thursday’s third Division I conference to say it won’t have a fall sports season. Comprising 11 historically black colleges and universities, the MEAC joined other FCS, Ivy League, and Patriot League conferences to play fall soccer and other sports, hoping to get them back in the spring semester if possible. .
At most major college soccer schools, athletes began returning to campus in June to participate in volunteer training at team facilities. This week football teams were allowed to start mandatory team activities, including unfilled run practices.
For the past month and a half, schools have been evaluating athletes regularly, and some outbreaks of the virus have caused activities in schools such as Ohio State, Kansas State, Houston, and North Carolina to close.
In many schools, positive tests among athletes have been minimal. On Thursday, Oklahoma reported that it had zero positive tests among 98 soccer players evaluated the previous day.
The problem is that universities and their athletic departments are not operating in a real bubble like the NBA is doing with their teams in Florida. If states and communities are struggling to contain the virus, it makes it more difficult to keep athletes safe, especially when the entire student body arrives on campus.
It also becomes more problematic for athletic departments to potentially contribute to the spread of the infection by bringing together large groups of people to play contact sports and then sending them back to campus and surrounding communities.
“So nothing that comes up with the student athlete is in a silo,” said Dr. Chris Kratochvil, executive director of the Global Center for Health Safety at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. “And we certainly want to protect them, but we also want to protect the community at large.”
Kratochvil, who heads the Big Ten Task Force for Emerging Infectious Diseases, said the availability of tests and how quickly results can be delivered, the availability of personal protective equipment used by health workers and the Stress in hospitals will be considered when determining whether college sports can be practiced.
“Everything is connected,” he said.
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