New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Agendas should not interfere with safety
This is how the tentacles of COVID-19 can spread and reach all corners of a state that has boasted of its enviable numbers. This is how we can lose trust in adults who supervise our kids and how we can be left to wonder how quickly those with an agenda will be forthcoming in giving a fuller picture.
This is the end of high school football in Connecticut in fall 2020. If there was one remaining shred of a thought that the CIAC Board of Control would defy the state Department of Public Health recommendation at its meeting Thursday morning, let what has happened in Meriden stand as two precautionary tales.
Or let’s hope they are two precautionary tales and don’t multiply into something worse than it is.
From top to bottom, the events in Meriden have shown us what can go wrong. And after we finish picking through the pieces, we must now ask if various youth organizations around the state — playing games in the face of the DPH in
sistence that football is a highrisk sport — are doing all that it takes to keep our kids safe? They are all going to insist they are. Of course, they are. When the only agenda is to play, the answer always fits the agenda.
On Monday, city officials confirmed to the Meriden RecordJournal that a Maloney High School student had tested positive for COVID-19 and, also, two cases within the Meriden Raiders youth program had put several kids in quarantine.
In a letter Friday through the Parent Square system, Maloney principal Jennifer Straub notified parents that the student didn’t report to school when developing symptoms. Hearst Connecticut Media confirmed Tuesday the student is a member of the football team and had attended the rally at the state capitol last Wednesday with more than 1,000 people, including 40 teams from Greenwich to Killingly. Later Tuesday, the Record-Journal confirmed this with city officials.
Meriden health officials began health tracing Friday. This showed the Maloney player has been in contact with members of his team cohort, his student cohort and those he went to Hartford with, a couple dozen close contacts, according to sources. We don’t know how many others that the player’s group came into contact in Hartford.
The good news — at least for those of us who trust legitimate science — is that the rally was outdoors and the great majority of protesters were wearing masks. Still, with so many people so close, it only takes a few to spread the disease to the many. While it is unclear if the Maloney student had already been tested or exhibited any symptoms, the timeframe between the rally at 5 p.m. Wednesday and the principal’s letter Friday is less than 48 hours.
It also is unclear if the other high school teams had been notified. Certainly, those from the general public who walked around the state capitol at the rally had not.
I know. I know. This is where the mob that doesn’t believe in the effectiveness of masks or where gatherings take place suddenly screams about the effectiveness of masks and that the rally took place outdoors. This is where the same mob points out that we don’t scream about masks when those stinking protesters at social injustice marches burn and loot.
So hold your ears, because I’m going to scream at the top of my lungs. PROTESTERS! DO NOT BURN! DO NOT LOOT! WEAR YOUR MASKS! And, oh yeah, I forgot. DUCK WHEN THE VIGILANTES START SHOOTING AT YOU!
Through July and mid-August, I was among those who believed football, seen as a high-risk sport by the DPH, should be postponed until late winter-early spring. As the state COVID numbers remained laudably low and the decisions and indecisions of the CIAC continued, my argument evolved to waiting for the kids to get into school for a few weeks, get the latest possible COVID metrics and data from other states playing high school football, and make the latest, best scientific call. After all, there is no guarantee the numbers will be any better in March.
Yet after the big confab and the CIAC modification proposals at the state capitol Friday, the DPH did not budge from its recommendation not to play. My argument has become a moot point. The school districts aren’t going to go against the DPH and risk million-dollar lawsuits.
Still, my stance all along was predicated on coaches, teachers, the kids, everyone doing all the right things, observing all the proper protocols with distancing, masks, etc., to try to make their great wish into a reality.
Then you see what has happened in Meriden. My trust is shaken.
A slice of it is because the very week Maloney High did not publicly step forward with information about the infected student, here was Meriden Superintendent of Schools Mark Benigni and Board of Education president Robert E. Kosienski writing a letter to the CIAC pushing hard for fall football to be played.
In the letter, dated last Wednesday and copied to Gov. Lamont and acting DPH commissioner Deidre S. Gifford, the first point was that youth leagues across the state have been practicing in full gear in 11 on 11 competitions. The letter challenged DPH inconsistences in assessing each sport, pointed to other states playing football and pushed for letting students and families to make the decision whether to play — as with in-person and distancinglearning. The idea in this time of COVID-19 of allowing students and parents to decide who plays football is a spectacularly bad idea. Still, Benigni, a football captain at Platt (Meriden) High, according to an old New York Times story, is a notable four-time former mayor of Meriden. He has must be careful how he exerts his influence. It’s a line that Connecticut House Speaker/Berlin football coach Joe Aresimowicz must walk.
The letter comes off as unfortunate timing with the Maloney player. And didn’t these men know about the Raiders problems? They should have.
Attempts to reach Benigni by Hearst Connecticut were unsuccessful.
This is what really bothers me. Meriden Mayor Kevin Scarpati said he has gotten complaints about coaches of the Meriden Raiders not adhering to state COVID guidelines, including not always wearing or properly wearing masks and proper social distancing. This dates to July when the Raiders were practicing. In response to calls from concerned parents, the Record-Journal reported, a city inspector investigated the complaints and found some compliance but provided copies of “Reopen CT Guidance for Youth Sports” to all the teams.
Since Sept. 1, the Raiders program has had two separate confirmed COVID-19 cases.
Last Thursday, Meriden Public Schools sent out a notice that a Lincoln Middle School student — one of those players — had tested positive and attended classes awaiting results of the test.
About 15 students at Washington Middle School, which also has Raiders players, were notified to quarantine, according to the Record-Journal. And in all, Meriden Public Health Director Lea Crown said about 100 individuals have been instructed to quarantine as a result of COVID cases involving students in local schools.
Scarpati told Hearst Connecticut Media that Meriden has more than tripled its COVID count in the last week. School, social gatherings, sports all have contributed, he said.
“There are still people not taking this seriously,” Scarpati said.
I know. None are football people. They take all the precautions.
I know. This is where the mob points to their town’s youth teams and say this many kids have participated in these many games and there hasn’t been a problem. This is where the mob yells at some in the media that they are the reason there is no high school football, that they hate sports and are the reason that the state is going to step in and start shutting down youth sports.
As an independent organization, the Meriden Raiders chose to ignore DPH recommendations that football is a high-risk spot. Some town sports groups have not and closed down. Some push on. There are no individual school districts to stop them. Still, the state can levy fines for not following guidelines. The health board or governor, exercising his recently extended emergency powers, can step in stop games and practices of any sport they want for the public good to stop the spread of disease.
If that happens, for God’s sake, don’t blame the media.
Blame those who didn’t follow the guidelines.
Teamwork and the greater good extends beyond one locker room.