summit-county-public-health-recommends-no-fall-sports-begin-before-oct-1

 
southernman said:
www.cleveland.com

Summit County Public Health recommends no fall sports begin before Oct. 1

SCPH also recommends shortening seasons for moderate and high-risk sports, which includes football, field hockey, soccer and volleyball.
www.cleveland.com www.cleveland.com
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Interesting that summit County health department considers track and cross country as no contact and low risk. And some sports that the OHSAA views as noncontact (volleyball for example) are considers “moderate risk” by summit county.
 
I would guess that might have something to do with volleyball being played indoors and sweaty players contacting the same ball over and over.
 
I would think that is true, but the OHSAA considers cross country a “contact” sport and higher risk, while they consider volleyball as noncontact. ... both may be experts in some things, but not cross country. If, at some point, they allow non-contact or low risk sports to take place, who do we listen to? The more we learn, the less we know.
 
Just don't know how any of this works when there are 88 different policies instead of one. And, What is recommends all about? Either make decisions or don't. How does it work if schools in some counties can't compete and those in others can? Could teams in Summit country be banned from competing in the state championship? Do you just train and not compete and hope the restrictions are lifted before the District meet? What if restrictions are lifted the Monday after the District meet is held?

There better be alternate sites for every meet including the state meet. What if the state meet is set and a county health board decides schools from their county can no longer compete? Disaster.
 
Why does the OHSAA designate XC as a contact sport, and can that be changed? Perhaps if we adopt wave starts to avoid packed starting lines? Overall I think this Summit County recommendation bodes well for the possibility of a XC season given the "no contact low risk" classification.
 
gatornation said:
Even worse, it is not 88 but 113, not sure why since there are 88 counties
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I'm sure there are municipalities that have their own health department. I know that Columbus had it's own health department I had to deal with when I did restaurants. They had some odd requirements unique to anywhere else I had ever submitted to.
 
I've talked to some of the higher ups in my area that have been in some of these conversations with people affiliated with ohsaa and oatcc. The ohsaa sees cross as a high contact concern because of the amount of schools that show up for meets. Its not just two schools competing, its multiple schools usually coming from multiple areas around the state making contact with one another. Also, the concern of running next to multiple athletes throughout a race (it unavoidable sometimes) just adds to longer exposures that they will bring home to their families.

To me it makes sense. It's the only sport where you usually have 10+ teams compete at one event. I know some on here have mentioned dual meets and staggering starts to combat this but don't know how schools can make profits off of this to pay for costs.
 
A couple of the people I know (a cousin and a former student-athlete) who have been spending almost all their time studying how this disease spreads and its effect on people of all ages have told me the volleyball is probably the highest risk fall sport simply because it is played indoor. (They also told me that the single highest risk sport in Ohio has to be indoor track and field.) Inside both the non-aerosol and aerosolized droplets spreading the virus are much more concentrated. Both of them said they felt that for XC, the race itself probably needs some changes but that it was the team camps, starting line and finish areas that are the most problematic. Both told me that masks should absolutely be worn at all times when not racing, and one said even when racing.

They also cautioned that the risk is directly tied to how how many people are at the meet (this is why XC is dangerous) and how much community spread happening in the areas where the those people live. So that even a relatively low risk of transmission means a bunch of transmission if there are thousand of people involved. So smaller meets are paramount if we do anything.

While I think it increasingly unlikely we will have a post season, if we do I had an idea for reducing the post season meet size. Normal conference meet week would be sectionals of max 7 teams feeding to district meets of 6 or 7 teams feeding to 6 team regional meets which feed to a 6 or 8 team state meet. Separate races for the individuals advancing at each level. No other athletes allowed at the meet. Maybe just parents as spectators. It would keep the number of kids in any given race under 50 (except maybe 56 for the state meet). Not ideal but it would certainly cut down dramatically on meet size. Particularly if we did meets at different sites or spread out times for different divisions.
 
grange45 said:
I've talked to some of the higher ups in my area that have been in some of these conversations with people affiliated with ohsaa and oatcc. The ohsaa sees cross as a high contact concern because of the amount of schools that show up for meets. Its not just two schools competing, its multiple schools usually coming from multiple areas around the state making contact with one another. Also, the concern of running next to multiple athletes throughout a race (it unavoidable sometimes) just adds to longer exposures that they will bring home to their families.

To me it makes sense. It's the only sport where you usually have 10+ teams compete at one event. I know some on here have mentioned dual meets and staggering starts to combat this but don't know how schools can make profits off of this to pay for costs.
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I don't think making money is an overriding concern for too many schools in XC. I'd be happy with dual meets and small meets this season.
 
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