Youth sports led to at least 40 cases
County recommended more than 800 quarantine as a result of events
Anne Arundel County health officials aren’t clear just how many coronavirus cases spread through youth sports this fall, or and if it had any impact on the continuing surge in cases.
But as of Nov. 8, the department knew there were at least 40 positive cases linked to youth sports and recommended 831 individuals related to those cases to quarantine, spokesperson Elin Jones said. Youth league competition and tournaments were held in Anne Arundel once the county permitted youth athletics to resume in June. The health department began tracking cases the week of Sept. 20, Jones said.
Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman on Nov. 12 halted youth sports starting Nov. 16 because of a rise in county cases. Anne Arundel County added 177 new coronavirus cases Monday, with the total since March at 16,919. At least 285 Anne Arundel County residents have died.
Tuesday, County Health Officer Nilesh Kalyanaraman said the number of cases linked to youth athletics is limited to contact tracing and individuals’ involvement.
“I don’t know what I don’t know,” Kalyanaraman said. “What I do is that when itwas brought to our attention and we had discussions with sports leagues or those tournaments, the big sticking point was always how they were going to enforce the rules that theywere putting into place.”
The county health department learned about positive coronavirus cases through teams and leagues self-reporting. From there, an average of 22 individuals connected per casewas contacted — much higher than the typical four or five contacts, Kalyanara
“What we found over and over again that as much as every sports league says they have a plan, their fidelity to doing that varies.”
— County Health Officer Nilesh Kalyanaraman
man said.
However, contact tracing done on confirmed cases was not complete.
“It gets very challenging to get in touch with everybody,” Kalyanaraman said. “We’ve talked about the fact that not everybody returns our phone calls who are contacts. We have about an 80% rate. For a team, when we have 20 contacts, that’s about four or five people that are not answering our call. That multiplies over the youth sports to mean there’s a lot of people who are potentially exposed who are not returning our calls, who we don’t know what they’re doing.”
When Anne Arundel Youth Football Association president Jason Clarke learned of the 40 positive cases and resulting quarantine recommendations, he reached out to the various commissioners of the 18 AAYFA organizations to ask if anyone had heard about any unreported cases on their teams.
The answers were mostly no. A South County Youth Athletics football team reported one case, but according to Clarke, precautions were taken and each member of the teamwas quarantined for twoweeks.
“From the entire year, we had one program that had one team that was asked to quarantine. … It was the last week of the season,” Clarke said. “We did have a coach who felt sick on a Saturday and didn’t come to practice. He got his results and he stayed away.”
The AA Y FA president said he trusted the organizations to be honest with him.
“I don’t feel like therewas any dishonesty because no one wants their child to be sick,” Clarke said.
Clarke felt his organizations upheld safety guidelines the best they could. The AAYFA also sent a report to Anne Arundel Recreation and Parks weekly, which would include any issues with coronavirus. Clarke assumed if something was wrong with his league or if cases were an issue across the board, they’d let him know.
Jones said testing did not take place at any youth sports events. Temperature checks were sometimes administered, but some individuals who are positive with coronavirus don’t exhibit symptoms.
Some leagues fell short at enforcing mask usage and keeping track of who entered events, Kalyanaraman said, which raises issues for tracing positive coronavirus cases’ contacts. Tournaments held beginning this summer sometimes numbered in the thousands and invited out-of-state teams and families.
“Those were large. Those were fairly chaotic. And what we learned that was really importantwas it’s one thing to have a plan; It’s another thing to execute that plan,” Kalyanaraman said. “What we found over and over again that as much as every sports league says they have a plan, their fidelity to doing that varies.”
Though restrictions such as banning youth sports within county borders are possible, the county doesn’t have the power to fully stop young athletes who live in Anne Arundel fromplaying.
As fall leagues closed out seasons earlier in November, Kalyanaraman said organizations were informed they could not have spectators. Those leagues, the county health officer said, opted to move playing locations out of the county.
“We found that kind of troubling because a lot of the discussion had been centered on howi mportant youth sports were— andwe agreed,” Kalyanaraman said. “From our standpoint, not having spectators really shouldn’t affect the ability to play. Totally get it— want to have spectators there, that’s part of the fun, part of the experience. But we were a little disappointed to see that they left [the county]. Spectators are probably the bigger challenge that coaches and sports leagues had trouble making sure people were following the rules.”
Athletes are still able to take part in tournaments being held in other states.
“We know we’re going to restrict or limit youth sports. That doesn’t mean it’s going to go down to zero for residents,” Kalyanaraman said, “but it does mean that they’re going to have to think harder about how they’re going to do this and it’s also going to limit the number of youth that participate.”