By Ciara Wallace
Many people are sad and downcast in these difficult times especially without being able to play sports. Youth sports have many well-documented benefits. For example, sports can help fight depression and anxiety, give you more social interactions, keep you at a healthy body weight, and can promote brain function. But with the risk of getting COVID-19, it is very hard to put your health first while playing sports in a youth sports environment.
Some sports have opened up such as MLB, College Football, and NBA. The NBA was forced to go on break on March 11th due to COVID-19 but started again on July 30th when 22 NBA teams went to the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex at Walt Disney World Resort near Orlando, Florida. In order to open back up again, they had to take many safety measures.
According to Jeff Zillgitt of USA Today, some examples of these safety measures are that all players and essential staff members had to take a PCR and antibody test. The PCR testing is repeated every other day and an antibody will only be repeated if they test positive. If a player tests positive they must also self isolate for at least 2 weeks. After each individual workout, the staff must clean the ball and at all times players must avoid spitting or clearing their noses, wiping the ball with their jersey, licking their hands, and unnecessarily touching their mouthguards. Players had to fill out a 36-question medical health history document that a physician had to sign. They also had to fill out a 5 symptom and exposure document daily. All team and league staff must wear a proximity alarm device which will set off an audio alert when the person is within 6 feet of another person who is also wearing a proximity alarm for more than 5 seconds but the proximity alarm is optional for players. Players also have the option of wearing an Oura smart ring that may help with early detection of the coronavirus and will track temperature, respiratory and heart rate, and other measures. Everyone inside the bubble must wear the magic band which provides access to hotel rooms and allows users to buy food and merchandise.
On a more local level, the Davis Legacy Soccer Club opened for training on June 16th. The Davis Legacy Soccer Club can’t play yet but they can go to practices. According to the Davis Legacy Soccer Club COVID-19 Health and Safety Protocols, here are some of the things they are doing to prevent getting the coronavirus. The coach must wear a mask at all times. Players must wear masks before, after, and during breaks. Everyone must maintain 10 feet of social distancing at all times unless you are from the same household, they have a strict no-contact policy. Parents shall drop off players only at designated field locations within the complex and players must leave immediately after practice ends. Parents can’t walk their child to the field, only can get onto the field if their child is injured. The coach needs to ask if players have covid symptoms before practice starts and needs to limit the equipment they bring to practice and disinfect the equipment before and after. Players also cannot touch the equipment, only the soccer balls but players are recommended to bring their own soccer ball. The players can’t train with other teams but can attend goalie training, private training is not allowed. When the players enter the field they must put their bags and water bottle by a cone that is 10 feet from other player’s bags.
A picture of 2 Davis Legacy Soccer Players social distanced with masks
College and pro sports may be able to play but it is going to be more difficult for youth sports. School sports teams and clubs do not have the resources or fundings to test players every other day or get any devices like the NBA and there are too many teams and players, without getting tested we can’t resume games that we can’t social distance for. Another problem is that for sports teams that travel, going to neighboring counties with much higher covid cases is not a good idea nor is having them come to us for tournaments, games, matches, etc. Some clubs have players on their own team from other counties and even that could be an issue. For example, according to the Yolo County COVID-19 Dashboard, Sac has 23.85k confirmed covid cases when YOLO county has 2,986 confirmed covid cases. Traveling for youth sports is not only a problem for just the games themselves but flying there, getting a hotel, or going to restaurants is a possibility that you might get covid. With all these complications, it will be tough to get back to playing normal sports without getting a vaccine and that could be 6 months away at best before it’s open for the public. We will have to wait and see what happens.
Cites:
NBA Website
www.nba.com/article/2020/06/04/board-of-governors-approves-nba-return-official-release
Davis Legacy Soccer
Davis_Legacy_Soccer_Club_-_COVID-19_Health_and_Safety_Protocols_-_Combined_English
USA today NBA Protocols
Yolo County Website
