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Will College Football Change Its Contact Tracing Approach?
With no way to test out of quarantine after COVID exposure, some see the need for change. Science might say otherwise.
www.si.com
One-quarter of the way through the 2020 season, these stories are unfolding across college football, as the sport labors to hold a season amid a pandemic while adhering to protocols designed to protect the health and safety of the very same people, athletes and staff, who are frustrated by them.
As industry insiders predicted over the summer, one specific protocol has been more challenging than any other.
“The contract tracing is killing us,” says Todd Berry, executive director of the American Football Coaches Association. “All the sudden the coaches are calling me. They tell me that one kid got it and 12 are out (for contact tracing), and none of the 12 even ever had it.”
A subjective process executed differently from school to school, contact tracing has resulted in dozens, if not hundreds, of college football players missing two weeks of activity—practices, games, you name it—for having been in close contact with a positive carrier of the virus. The current operating CDC guidelines define a high-risk contact as someone within six feet of an infected person for at least 15 minutes without each party wearing a mask.
According to the CDC, and enforced by local health departments, high-risk contacts must quarantine for a mandatory 14 days.
The lengthy quarantine time is inconsistent among schools and is nine days longer than the NFL’s own protocol. The policy has created friction through the ranks of college athletics, from players to coaches and even to administrators.