As some states and communities return to youth sports during the COVID-19 pandemic, many parents are trying to navigate this new experience on their own. Project Play is here to help. While some questions are best answered by public health experts based on local conditions, there are guidelines and best practices that are very useful. We will periodically answer youth sports parents’ questions in this Project Play Parent Mailbag. Got a question? Submit it in the space on the right side of this page or email jon.solomon@aspeninstitute.org.
I’m president of a soccer organization and a youth and family applied researcher by trade. I’m struggling to find any evidence, or even anecdotes, about the outcomes of return to play on children’s health. I know it’s a topic that’s hard to tackle, given all the confounding factors, but it seems interesting that kids are going to camp, playing games and returning to play in many places and we haven’t heard about an outbreak. Is anyone working on this?
Amy Henry
Good question. The short answer is we don’t know of any research exploring youth sports outbreaks around the U.S., where testing and contact tracing have posed challenges in some communities. Anecdotally, there are some concerning reports connecting COVID-19 outbreaks to the return of kids playing sports.
In Kentucky, there was an outbreak among a high school football team that spread to 38 people, including 18 football players, three coaches and 17 of their family members and close contacts who have tested positive. The school suspended all athletic workouts and those who tested positive are recovering at home. The first case came from a player returned from vacation and tested positive. It’s believed he transmitted the virus through weight room workouts. “This is just one example of why wearing a mask is absolutely critical,” Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said at a news conference last week. “Let’s just take this as another lesson that we’re living in really dangerous times. It says that we need to be nervous right now about sports.”
In St. Louis County, Missouri, the county executive said youth sports are “the primary source of spread in the community.” County officials said there have been six to eight new cases of COVID-19 reported daily in children and teens ages 10 to 19. At least two high schools have reported cases involving athletes participating in football conditioning workouts. The county’s department of public health created new guidelines for youth sports. Teams are now only allowed to practice and play within-team competitions and not against other teams or compete in tournaments. Some youth sports leagues are protesting the order.
In Iowa, high school baseball and softball postseason brackets have been heavily disrupted by COVID-19 cases on various teams. Iowa was the first state to resume high school sports. Roughly 25 baseball teams and 20 softball teams have been impacted by possible exposures or infections, according to ESPN. One athletic director said so many programs have had to shut down with quarantines that “we’re all looking at each other like, ‘Well, it’s only a matter of time before we’re next.’” Chris Cuellar, communications director for the Iowa High School Athletic Association, told ESPN that social distancing has been one of the biggest challenges for some communities, whose policies are more relaxed as people at games act “like coronavirus doesn’t exist.”
A new study from South Korea found that children between the ages of 10 and 19 can spread the virus at least as well as adults do. Children younger than 10 transmit to others much less often than adults do, but the risk is not zero. The study authors cautioned that the new number of infections seeded by children may rise when schools reopen. The researchers traced the contacts only of children who felt ill, so some experts say it’s still unclear how efficiently asymptomatic children spread the virus.
“I fear that there has been this sense that kids just won’t get infected or don’t get infected in the same way as adults and that, therefore, they’re almost like a bubbled population,” Michael Osterhold, an infectious disease expert at the University of Minnesota, told The New York Times. “There will be transmission. What we have to do is accept that now and include that in our plans.”
My concern is football, which is played in close proximity to other players. How can we effectively guard against transmission as the players are practicing and playing?
Margaret O’Connor-Campbell
As we wrote about a couple weeks ago, football is one of the hardest sports to bring back during the pandemic. The sport has contact on every single play. It’s a game filled with large rosters of players and coaches. The virus could spread through droplets within tackle piles, huddles, sidelines and locker rooms. USA Football’s guidelines recommended a phased approach to returning.
But we’re already seeing several youth football leagues cancel their fall season in prominent football hotbeds. The Chicagoland Youth Football League, considered one of the largest football leagues in the country with 8,000 players from 46 suburbs, decided not to play.
“Instead of contributing to the rise in numbers of COVID-19 and everything, it’s more important to get kids back into school than onto a football field,” league president Geoff Meyer told NBC Chicago. “With all the stuff happening, there’s too many unknowns out there.”
The American Youth Football League, with more than 4,000 players spanning three counties, became the first football league in South Florida to cancel. “I don’t believe there is going to be youth football this year,” AYFL President Jim Ross told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. “We are the first league to do this.”
Other youth football league cancellations have been reported in Birmingham, Alabama; Champaign, Illinois; Tucson, Arizona; and Reno, Nevada. All fall high school sports in California, including football, have moved to the spring, joining New Mexico as the only states to postpone fall sports yet in high schools. Texas and Florida have announced they plan to play high school football this fall, with a one-month delay in Texas for highly-populated metro areas due to COVID-19 challenges there.
In Montgomery Alabama, the president of one youth football team won’t allow his team to play this season even though the other nine teams plan to do so. “I’ve been a competitor all my life,” Ozaki Jones, president of the Montgomery Raiders, told The Montgomery Advertiser. “And as competitive as I am, I don’t want to have the season at the expense of somebody’s life being taken away.”
How can I assess a program’s preparedness for return to play?
Lynn Jobe
Ask questions. It’s not easy finding answers from youth sports leagues that are 100% satisfactory – and with good reason given the challenges associated with COVID-19. Still, it’s important to ask questions to appropriately assess the risks and benefits of your child returning to sports during the pandemic.
Project Play created a list of eight simple questions that parents can ask themselves or their child’s sports provider about safety measures. Our questions were compiled from best practices and current guidance by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Is my child or are household members more vulnerable to becoming ill from COVID-19?
Has my child’s program shared a detailed plan for COVID-19 risk mitigation?
Is the program embracing a phased approach to re-opening?
How will the program identify players or coaches who are potentially infected?
How do I determine if my child is infected and should avoid participation?
Is my child old enough to understand the reasons for maintaining physical distancing?
What mask procedures are in place for my child’s program?
How comfortable am I signing a COVID-19 waiver?
We will periodically answer youth sports parents’ questions in this Project Play Parent Mailbag. Got a question? Submit it in the form in this page’s sidebar or email jon.solomon@aspeninstitute.org.
