The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
COVID-19 testing at issue with schools
Athletic directors bristle at logistics, including cost
The Ohio Department of Health said COVID-19 testing mandatory 72hours in advance of competition.
On Aug. 1, the Ohio Department of Health issued an 11-page order that, among other things, makes COVID-19 testing mandatory 72 hours in advance of competition for fall sports athletes and staff members.
While the order shows that the ODH is focusing on the fall high school sports season, the order presents a new set of problems and challenges for area athletic directors. Between the cost and time required for testing results to return, schools face an uphill battle to comply with the state’s testing guidelines.
“Right now, it just doesn’t seem feasible,” Open Door Athletic Director Bryce Johnson said of the testing requirements. “My wife works in the health field and some places are getting their tests back a week later. Seventy-two hours seems really hard to do. It’s hard for me to imagine how we truly follow the guidelines for schools to have contact sports. I don’t know how we can do it with these mandates in place right now.”
The order, which was put out by ODH Interim Director Lance D. Himes, defines football, basketball, rugby, field hockey, soccer, lacrosse, wrestling, and ice hockey with opponents as contact sports. Football, soccer and cross country are currently designated as contact sports by the OHSAA among those to be played this fall.
The order serves as an extension of an order put forth at the start of July that coincided with the start of The Basketball Tournament, a Columbusbased professional basketball tournament.
“It’s my understanding that the original order was set forth to impact professional sports,” Lorain Athletic Director Bryan Koury said. “I don’t think anything has changed. Everything is the same it was a week ago, the only change is that the original order that was put out was set to expire. Obviously, there’s no high school in the state of Ohio that would be able to follow that testing schedule. It just obviously wouldn’t be feasible.”
In addition to presenting a logistical nightmare, mandated testing could end up costing schools thousands of dollars. Johnson estimates that Open Door would need around 60 tests to cover players and coaches on Open Door’s boys and girls soccer teams.
“If hospitals were to help out and the state were to help pay for it, I could see it potentially working but right now it seems like too much of a cost,” Johnson said.
Over the past week, a petition on change.org that’s looking to remove the mandatory testing has garnered more than 46,000 signatures, 4,000 from the stated goal of 50,000.
“I believe (the 72-hour testing period) is intrusive, excessive, expensive, and unnecessary if you have no symptoms,” petition organizer Joshua Fahey wrote in the petition’s description. “We should not have to be required to test in order to play. I also think it sets the entire season up for failure causing a ripple effect when one person tests positive. A temperature reading should suffice and a check for any symptoms Related (sic) to COVID.”
The ODH order was released after the OHSAA informed member schools it intended to move forward with fall sports. The OHSAA memo listed Aug. 24 as the target date for school vs. school contests beginning, with a note stating the date was “subject to change and subject to the approval from the Governor’s Office/Ohio Department of Health and with the stipulation that COVID-19 testing will not be required.”
Over the weekend, numerous schools in Northeast Ohio announced they were delaying or postponing the start of fall sports practices due to recommendations from their local boards of health.
The Summit County Board of Health and Portage County Health District advised schools in that county to hold off starting competitive high school sports play until at least Oct. 1 due to the continuing novel coronavirus pandemic. The Cuyahoga County Board of Health recommended July 30 schools begin the school year remotely and that extracurricular activities be suspended during that time due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Five schools from the Morning Journal coverage area — Bay, North Olmsted, Fairview, Olmsted Falls and Westlake — announced they were suspending fall sports for the time being.
“The one thing that’s very frustrating is that different health departments throughout the state are giving different recommendations,” Koury said.
Lorain, which is the only Lorain County team in the Lake Erie League, had four conference opponents announce they were suspending athletics.
“That doesn’t necessarily mean that one is right, and one is wrong, it’s just difficult when different parts of the state of Ohio are doing things in different ways,” said Koury. “Let’s say that one health department gives a recommendation as to what you should do to keep your team safe. Well, if another health department in another county is giving a different recommendation, does that mean that we shouldn’t travel to that school in that county because they’re doing things different? That’s something that we need to figure out because that’s going to play in heavily in our game day protocols.”
Johnson and Open Door are also in a tough spot. The Patriots, who don’t have a football team, compete in the Lake Effect Conference where they, along with Lake Ridge, are the only teams based in Lorain County.
If teams based in Cuyahoga County decides to play teams in their county — or not at all — Open Door could be in a situation with no opponents to play. Johnson says he’s begun to reach out to athletic directors in the Lorain County League to see if they can fit Open Door into their potential conference-only schedule.
“If schools in Cuyahoga County cancel, then we’re stuck playing Lorain county teams — which is great for us — but if teams in Lorain County go conference-only then our schedule would be destroyed,” Johnson said. “I reached out to the LC8 ADs and had very short conversations in the hopes that the conference will assist us in getting games. Our schedule is definitely hurting right now.”
For now, Open Door and Lorain have pushed forward with fall sports practices. With the scheduled start of competition three weeks away, Johnson and Koury know that something will need to change between now and then.
“We’re going to do all we can here in Lorain to keep our kids and coaches safe and that could mean us not playing some games this fall,” Koury said. “Those are things we need to figure out. We’re not far away from our first scheduled game. It’s a very important situation and everyone needs to understand that things can change daily. I don’t foresee us ignoring what we’re being told is safe for our kids.”