Covid rise
- Thread starter oldfool2
- Start date
Depends on what is most popular in the polls. It is an election year. After 11/2, 11/3 I am sure we will be doing what ever Washington DC says.
There are zero federal elections this year. The federal government cannot enforce any type of mandates. Now, there is a Virginia governor's election. If you want to vote the pandemic away, that is where you should look.
I think football will be fine, but there might be some restrictions on the indoor sports. I think the education part of school will be affected more than football.
I say that schools shut down mid October, just like March 2019, and stay all virtual and return blended for 2nd semester. Football gets shut down, no winter sports and spring sports will be like this past spring season.
I mentioned this on another board and am curious about thoughts. Quarantine for the entire team for one positive test? Will this be the rule again? If it is the rule, the Virginia High School Football Season for 2021 is basically already cancelled in my opinion. It's an absolute given that not a couple, but many teams will have at least one kid on the team test positive at some point in the season. So, do we shut the entire team down for 10-14 days which basically means the season isn't the same. It can happen to a team in the playoffs for example, a Graham, or Ridgeview last year, etc. It would be a shame to play the Russian Roulette thing again which is basically by chance, some luck, some bad luck as to whether you can play in the playoffs or at key points in the regular season based on 1 single positive test (which is GUARANTEED) to happen to more than a few teams.
My hope would be the VHSL and Dept of Health are pro-active as well as Athletic Directors and School Officials to nail this single positive test thing down, and not "stumble" upon it in week 1 of the season and not having given it much thought as to what to do. For example, I hope a rule, just an example of something like this.......if you have a positive test on the team, your team can still play if at least 80% of the kids on the team has had the vaccine or they have actually had Covid in the past, etc, and if you meet that criteria, your team can play and if you don't, then you quarantine, etc. I'm no health person and don't know what the criteria should be, but I do know this.....
1. Week one is not the time to start planning for it. The time for planning is now.
2. There needs to be guidelines of what happens with 1 positive test (because it will happen).
3. Based on treatment advances, more people either being vaccinated or having immunity from the virus because they have had it, or both, and knowledge of how to treat Covid, and lethality and hospitalization being down compared to last year at this time, I know that requiring the entire team to quarantine due to one single positive test is the wrong the do.
My hope would be the VHSL and Dept of Health are pro-active as well as Athletic Directors and School Officials to nail this single positive test thing down, and not "stumble" upon it in week 1 of the season and not having given it much thought as to what to do. For example, I hope a rule, just an example of something like this.......if you have a positive test on the team, your team can still play if at least 80% of the kids on the team has had the vaccine or they have actually had Covid in the past, etc, and if you meet that criteria, your team can play and if you don't, then you quarantine, etc. I'm no health person and don't know what the criteria should be, but I do know this.....
1. Week one is not the time to start planning for it. The time for planning is now.
2. There needs to be guidelines of what happens with 1 positive test (because it will happen).
3. Based on treatment advances, more people either being vaccinated or having immunity from the virus because they have had it, or both, and knowledge of how to treat Covid, and lethality and hospitalization being down compared to last year at this time, I know that requiring the entire team to quarantine due to one single positive test is the wrong the do.
I don't disagree with any of Fairlawncat's points, except that VHSL cannot impose health restrictions on whole state. Individual school divisions will set policies based on local transmission and local politics. I know even among neighboring conservative counties, there were different rules for putting schools on timeout. Playoff participation rules are run by Region. I hope some of what you describe does get implemented. But I also know everything keeps changing day by day.
All I am asking for is a plan. I'm not a health guy, so I don't know what the exact plan should be, but I know there should be some kind of plan discussed right now. The VHSL can't impose health restrictions, but they can play a factor in communication and getting school officials and AD's, counties, etc., on the same path and at least having a discussion. If going strictly by CDC guidelines, at this time, people do NOT have to quarantine if they have been exposed to the virus as long as they have had the vaccine. They simply need to retest in 5 days. So, if we go by this, that's good news for football.
