MADISON, Wis. (WMTV) - Calls to let students return to the field have echoed across the state since the pandemic forced the shutdown of many sports programs. But is it a reasonable request?
Earlier this week, parents with the group “Open Dane County Public and Private Schools” touted the findings of a recent study published out of the UW School of Medicine and Public Health.
In collaboration with the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Association (WIAA), researchers surveyed around 200 schools in Wisconsin that restarted their sports in September. All schools reported having COVID plans in place.
“These findings suggest that participation in sports is not associated with an increased risk of COVID-19 among Wisconsin high school student-athletes,” researchers wrote in the conclusion.
In the sample of more than 30,000 student athletes, there were 271 cases of COVID-19 reported. None resulted in hospitalization or death.
Among the 209 cases with a known source of virus transmission, only one was connected to sports.
Dr. Ajay Sethi, an associate professor and epidemiologist at UW-Madison, described limitations to the study’s methodology. Sethi, who did not take part in the research, said self-reported data would not have covered the asymptomatic cases often found in children.
Researchers drew their conclusion, finding that the case rate of the sample (901 cases per 100,000 residents) was lower than that of similar-aged children in the state (1,035 cases per 100,000 residents). But Sethi noted, the Department of Health Services (DHS) now calls a case rate of 1,000 cases per 100,000 residents to be in the “critically high” category.
Furthermore, Sethi points parents to what happened in pro sports. He said, “Despite having all the resources to stop COVID, they still cant control the outbreaks because there’s so much contact during practices and during games.”
“Right now, any kind of gathering of people from different households is dangerous. Youth sports is certainly a good outlet, but it is not an essential activity right now,” Sethi said.
He added, his recommendation to stay away from team sports does not change even if they involve children who have recovered from coronavirus. “We do not know why some people get reinfected and others do not. We also do not know how serious infection is the second time around,” he explained.
Brian Waszczyk said he will be keeping his two kids out of winter sports, though he understands the “importance of kids being involved.” He gave baseball and softball a chance earlier this year.
“The amount of people that they were coming across and not everybody has the same protocols,” he said. “It was best to pull them.”
“With numbers on the rise, they won’t be playing anywhere,” Dan Hawk said, referring to his two daughters who have been playing basketball for the past several months.
Friday, the DHS recorded more than 300,000 total COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic. Officials wrote on Twitter, “It took 7 months to get to 100,000 cases, 36 days to hit 200,000, and only 18 days to get to 300,000.”
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The Link LonkNovember 14, 2020 at 11:34AM
https://www.weau.com/2020/11/14/to-send-or-not-to-send-kids-back-to-sports-takeaways-from-a-uw-study/
To send or not to send kids back to sports: takeaways from a UW study - WEAU
https://news.google.com/search?q=Send&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
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