For Huskies, more testing, more waiting
So now what?
Now what does the UConn men’s basketball team do, after a member of the program tested positive for COVID-19 on Sunday?
Right now, the only answer is to see what kind of results come from more testing over the next couple of days, and move on from there. UConn’s medical team will continue to work with the Connecticut Department of Health and make decisions based on its guidance and recommendations from the Center for Disease Control.
Currently, the CDC still recommends a quarantine period of 14 days for close contacts of people who have tested positive. However, quarantine can end after 10 days if no symptoms have been reported during daily monitoring. But that’s without testing.
If close contacts test negative, and are without symptoms during daily monitoring, their quarantine can end after seven days.
That would likely mean that, if the rest of the UConn team tests negative over the next few days, their quarantine would end within the
week. This could explain why Sunday night’s bout at Georgetown, which falls exactly seven days after the first positive test, has not yet been postponed. The Huskies’ original Big East-opener, slated for Friday night at Gampel against St. John’s, has been postponed to a later date.
Of course, if there are further positive tests within the program, it’s hard to know exactly what would happen. Multiple positives and it’s hard to see the Huskies able to break quarantine prior to the 14-day deadline. One or two positives, from a roommate of the infected player or the like, and it’s possible the rest of the team could be allowed to play, as is as is currently the case with Syracuse.
The Orange have played games over the past week without several players — one of whom tested positive, the others considered close contacts who must quarantine for 14 days. But the rest of the team plays on.
Earlier in the season, a Syracuse player and coach Jim Boeheim tested positive for COVID-19. The Orange were required to pause while the positive cases spent 10 days in isolation and everyone else served a 14-day quarantine. In the more recent case, Syracuse was able to use data collected from a wristwatch-like device to convince local health officials to quarantine only people identified by the data as close contacts.
UConn is not using such data-collecting devices at this time. All contract tracing is simply done by figuring out, through interviews and otherwise, who has been close to whom during certain times.
And it doesn’t take much. Buddy Boeheim, the coach’s son and one of the Orange’s starting guards, was close to the infected person (a walkon) for fewer than 15 minutes but more than 10 minutes. New York’s guidelines consider anyone within six feet of an infected person for 10 minutes as a close contact.
As of late Monday afternon, UConn was still awaiting results from the first test following Sunday’s positive. There will be more tests in the coming days. Any major spread and don’t expect to see the Huskies in action again until Dec. 20 against Creighton, at the very earliest. No more positive tests and, perhaps, UConn will play Georgetown on Sunday.
Anything in between, and it’s just impossible at this point to know when the Huskies could resume play.
Hurley was slated to address the media about the situation via Zoom call on Monday afternoon, but had to cancel at the last minute. A school spokesman said he will hopefully reschedule the call for Tuesday.