NCAA recommends weekly COVID-19 tests for soccer players

The NCAA says that soccer players must be tested for COVID-19 within 72 hours of each game.

The collegiate governing body published an updated set of recommendations and guidelines for schools to follow as they try to play sports during the 2020-21 school year. Those guidelines include testing players in high-risk contact sports before each game and isolating any player who comes into prolonged contact with someone who has COVID-19.

Both soccer and basketball are included in the high risk of contact category.

“When we made the extremely difficult decision to cancel last spring’s championships it was because there was simply no way to conduct them safely,” NCAA President Mark Emmert said in a statement. “This document presents the advice of health professionals on how to resume college sports if we can achieve an environment where COVID-19 rates are manageable. 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. ”

Assuming soccer is played this fall, a player who tests positive for coronavirus should isolate himself for 10 days if he has no symptoms, while those who do have symptoms must be symptom-free for at least 72 hours. And anyone who has been in contact with the positive player must be quarantined for 14 days.

As you can imagine, those protocols can be prohibitive for playing soccer on schedule. Large portions of teams could be forced to quarantine if a teammate tests positive for coronavirus. And the NCAA is very aware of that.

A player’s test results must also return within that 72-hour window, which means that tests must be reversed quickly. That is not happening in many parts of the country. Test results are delayed across the country as coronavirus cases have skyrocketed in recent weeks. Schools will need to find ways to get quick results before games.

“Due to this increase, sports, especially high-risk contact sports, may not be practiced safely in some areas,” said the NCAA. “Along with public health officials, schools should consider pausing or suspending sports activities when local circumstances warrant such consideration.”

The NCAA guidelines came with a table that clearly explained how coronavirus cases have exploited. Spikes across the country have led to growing pessimism in athletic departments about the viability of fall sports. And the increase in confirmed coronavirus cases is why both Big Ten and Pac-12 have said their teams will play conference-only schedules in the fall.

The switch to conference-only times gives schools flexibility to move games with fewer games during the fall and potentially avoid scenarios where numerous team members miss multiple games because someone tested positive for COVID-19.

Other recommendations

• NCAA guidelines strongly recommend that players and coaches wear masks while on the sidelines during games.

• Anyone who becomes symptomatic between the time the test was performed and the results are returned should be isolated. A team must inform their opponent if someone develops coronavirus-like symptoms during a game.

• “Schools should have a mechanism to notify other schools if an athlete from one team tests positive within 48 hours of competition with another team.”

• All officials must be regularly evaluated before games as players.

• Teams should work and practice in “functional units” of 5-10 people whenever possible. All training should be done outdoors if possible.

“A similar strategy is to have one unit in a team always train against another unit in a team,” said the NCAA. For example, the first unit of the soccer team always trains against the third unit of the soccer team; and the second and fourth units always train together. This means that if an individual on one of those drives becomes infected, the entire computer may not be affected and contact tracking is more manageable than it would be in the event of an infection.