UConn dorm shutdown may be harbinger of what’s to come
If the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference Needed Any More Evidence That Playing Full-Contact Football During A Pandemic Is A Bad Idea, That Evidence Arrived Gift-Wrapped On Thursday.
On the same day when the CIAC announced that fall high school football games would begin in October, the University of Connecticut announced that it was placing an entire residence hall under medical quarantine. Nine new cases of COVID-19 had been associated with the Garrigus Suites on the Storrs campus. Twelve cases had already been confirmed in the residence hall, home to some 270 students. Many members of the UConn football team live in Garrigus Suites.
Just a week earlier, six football players had tested positive for COVID-19, and all UConn football activities were “paused.”
This how the virus spreads, and we know it. UConn officials said they did their best to keep it contained. There’s no reason to doubt them. When the outbreak was discovered, spokesperson Stephanie Reitz said, “This is a cluster of new cases among students in close contact with one another in shared living spaces, which we are able to identify, contain and isolate within the one cluster.”
It sounded fine on paper, but the coronavirus has a way of spreading, especially among teams. Bring a team into a school situation, and this is what you get. And, what’s particularly significant here, the football team was just practicing. The season has been canceled.
The state has taken a number of good steps to fight the virus, such as limiting gatherings and mandating masks in public places, and it can do more — by enforcing a shutdown of high school football, for example. The governor has been a strong advocate for safety these last few months, making decisions on the basis of the public good.
His attitude toward high school sports, though, has been unacceptably hands-off. It’s time for him to step in and do the right thing: Let the kids play soccer and swim. But put an end to tackle football for the fall. The CIAC, which — and let’s say this clearly — has decided to ignore the advice of public health experts during a deadly pandemic, is not capable of making the right call.
But it’s not just up to the governor or local officials. As the UConn dorm situation shows, stanching the spread of the coronavirus is even more dependent on decisions made by individuals every day.
Students who live in residence halls, for example, must change their behavior. If they don’t, the party’s over.
That means wearing masks (covering mouth and
nose, not strapped under the chin) and keeping their distance as much as possible. It means respecting others and their decisions to socially distance, to avoid parties and hugs and all of the things that are supposed to define the social aspects of college.
It’s not just about colleges, where students might be more likely to exhibit some maturity and make good decisions. Primary and secondary schools are opening this week. That puts the onus not just on students but their parents.
Parents will be the ones making decisions about whether to send their children to school if someone in the house — even if it’s not the student — is feeling unwell. It’s up to parents to take their children’s temperatures, and their own, and to keep students at home if there’s any question whether the coronavirus is loose in the house.
Parents need to do what’s right for the community, and so do administrators and coaches. Even though the CIAC is planning for full-contact football in October, that doesn’t mean individual schools have to play ball. They can opt out.
But we don’t expect many will. As Hartford Public coach Harry Bellucci said, “We are playing fall football until someone tells us we can’t.”
Until coaches and the CIAC accept responsibility for their own decisions, that “someone” is Gov. Ned Lamont. It’s time for the governor to get off the bench.