South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Hurricanes near 85% vaccination threshold
CORAL GABLES — When it comes to COVID-19, the Miami Hurricanes are hoping their misfortune from 2020 won’t follow them into 2021 despite the pandemic remaining a threat to their upcoming season.
UM witnessed the effects the pandemic can have on a team’s season, with the program having to reschedule the final phase of its 2020 season after a COVID-19 outbreak among team members.
The Hurricanes were far from the only college football team that had last season’s schedule upended by the pandemic, with over 130 college football games canceled or postponed in 2020.
So as the number of new coronavirus cases continues to rise throughout the country due to the delta variant — with Florida setting the record for the state’s most cases registered in a day on Friday, one day after setting the previous record — team vaccinations have become a pivotal aspect of preseason preparations.
Medical groups advising the NCAA have stated that an 85% team-vaccination threshold should be reached before programs could go about life as normally as possible (not having to wear masks and/ or remain physically distant).
UM coach Manny Diaz said on Friday after the Hurricanes’ first preseason practice that the team will cross the 85% threshold in “the next week or so” after some players are two weeks removed from their second vaccination dose.
Diaz’s entire football staff has been fully vaccinated.
“That was a benchmark we wanted to hit,” Diaz said. “Maybe some others will sign up. It’s real. It’s here.
“We got to go back to the same mode as a year ago. We got to protect the team and program. Here we are 12 months later and we’re still dealing with the same stuff.”
Unless they are symptomatic or deemed to have come in close contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19, fully vaccinated members of the program — or those who have been infected with the coronavirus in the past
90 days — wouldn’t be required to get tested while individuals who aren’t fully vaccinated could be tested as many as three times per week, according to the NCAA’s latest guidance for fall sports for vaccinated versus unvaccinated individuals.
Individuals who aren’t fully vaccinated would have to quarantine in accordance with local public health authority guidance if identified as having had close contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19.
Fully vaccinated individuals in that situation would have to wear a mask in public indoor settings for
14 days unless they return a negative COVID-19 test within three to five days of exposure or if assessment doesn’t reveal high risk.
Anyone who tests positive for
COVID-19 would have to isolate for at least 10 days, regardless of vaccination status.
“It’s a discussion,” quarterback D’Eriq King said when asked how much the team talks about getting vaccinated.
“At the end of the day, everybody has to make their own decision. [I don’t think] anybody’s pressuring anybody to get the vaccine.”
Added safety Bubba Bolden: “It’s not something we’re going to press on somebody. Personally, I got vaccinated, I don’t want to miss games.
“[Wide receiver Mike Harley is] my roommate. I don’t want to get Mike sick. I don’t [want] nothing like that happening. I’m just being unselfish, but I can’t speak for everybody. Everybody’s got their own ways.”
While happy that at least 85% of the players on his team will soon be fully vaccinated, Diaz acknowledged that he worries about the possibility of unvaccinated players on the team derailing the season.
But he leaves the decisions to the players, knowing adjustments will continue to be made.
“We’ve given them freedom of choice,” Diaz said. “But one thing we’ve learned during the pandemic: Freedom of choice is not the same as freedom of consequence.
“We will adjust the same way we adjusted last year.”