As many states and communities return to youth sports during the COVID-19 pandemic, parents are trying to navigate this new experience on their own. Project Play is here to help. While some questions are best answered by public health experts based on local conditions, there are guidelines and best practices that are very useful. We will periodically answer youth sports parents’ questions in this Project Play Parent Mailbag. Got a question? Submit it in the space on the right side of this page or email jon.solomon@aspeninstitute.org.
It seems like there are no standard metrics of when to return to play. Do you have any recommendations of what those metrics should look like?
Robert Murphy
Anecdotally, there seems to be very little consistency across the country on what metrics are being used to reopen youth sports. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has return to play considerations. The White House has gating criteria guidelines for America to reopen, based on downward trajectories of COVID-19 cases, positivity test rates and hospitalizations. Many national sport organizations have recommendations as well.
One of the best plans on returning to sports that applies specific metrics comes from a women’s roller derby league. Many youth sports organizations contacted the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDBA) to learn about its guidelines, which were designed by epidemiologists and infectious disease experts while looking at sports plans from Europe and Australia. The idea: Determine what amount of COVID-19 is allowable for people to participate in basic levels of activity.
“Really, what’s being talked about right now in the media is professional sports returns and bubbles. Where does that leave everybody else?” said Erica Vanstone, executive director of the WFTDA, which oversees more than 450 adult roller derbies across the globe and partners with a junior roller derby association. “We felt if we could get this conversation out there to more amateur and youth communities, we could make the case on at least having a basic understanding of what COVID look like in your area.”
Vanstone began working on the plan in April because she said the CDC guidelines were too vague and kept changing. The WFTDA has seven tiers of different activities that are allowed based on local conditions. The most interesting element is the baseline conditions required to enter Tier 1.
The WFTDA utilizes 50 daily positive cases per 100,000 people over 14 days as its marker for ideal downward trends of new active cases. For instance, if the population of your league’s locality is 0-9,999 people, there should be zero cases each day; if the population is 10,000-99,9999 people, there should be no more than five daily cases; and if the population is over 100,000, the maximum should be 50 per day.
The WFTDA guidelines provide instructions on how to calculate the maximum number of new active cases for a high-density population area. For example, the population of Philadelphia is 1,584,000. Divide 1,584,000 by 100,000 to get 15.84 as the population multiplier. Multiply 15.84 by 50, which is the maximum number of new active cases allowable per day: 15.84 multiplied by 50 = 792 cases over 14 days. Divide the maximum number of new cases allowable over 14 days by 14 to find the maximum number allowable per day: 792 divided by 14 = 56.6 new active cases reported per day by Philadelphia, meaning that’s the maximum number to track for that larger city.
“We’re aware of the fact that we don’t know if 50 over 100,000 is too much COVID,” Vanstone said. “When COVID hit Pennsylvania, the state health department used the metric. Maybe 25 over 100,000 is the better number. But we felt we had to start somewhere and measure progress and see if it’s effective. We have not had any roller derby COVID-related cases.”
The CDC defines moderate incidence as up to 50 new cases per 100,000 people over 14 days. The metric has been commonly used by organizations tracking COVID-19 cases. Vanstone said her organization’s plan was created in April because “there was a vacuum” of information for amateur and youth sports organizations to follow.
To date, 69% of the WFTDA organizations remain below local baseline conditions and not ready to return. The WFTDA’s membership is largely within the U.S. (75%). The WFTDA has promoted its guidelines publicly and more than 1,000 organizations were interested in seeing them, including high schools and teams/organizations in all kind of sports (taekwondo, field hockey, rowing, lacrosse, football and cycling.
“We know people (in roller derby) are frustrated with our guidelines compared to other places,” Vanstone said. “We were pretty frank up front: ‘Look, we’re trying to save lives.’ I’ve heard it said that sports are the reward of a functioning society. We don’t get to play sports until people can play without losing their lives. Admittedly, it’s a tough sell in the sports climate.”
Does anyone know whether youth sports teams are actually following guidelines of social distancing and masks? How is it actually playing out for real?
Susan Harmon
Because youth sports are so fragmented and don’t receive much media attention, it’s hard to know how it’s playing out unless examples pop up in the media or from local public health officials. The best story we’ve seen published came out last week from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which collaborated with other USA Today media outlets to send five reporters to youth sports tournaments in Wisconsin and Indiana over one weekend in late August. What they found:
“There is little consistency on health and safety rules at tournaments. In fact, they can vary from event to event within the same facility.” At 400-acre Grand Park in Indiana, the reporters found four tournaments and local tackle football games that each promoted different COVID-19 regulations on the same campus.
Following the rules was spotty at best. “At most tournaments, few spectators wore masks and many did not maintain safe social distancing, despite the posted rules. Some coaches and officials wore face coverings, but most did not. Only a handful of players wore masks on benches or in the dugouts. And while bleachers at baseball games were closed to prevent fans from clustering, many simply gathered close together elsewhere.”
“Enforcement is lacking. There was little evidence of anyone in authority asking parents of players to abide by the rules.” A pediatric physician cautioned that vigilant enforcement is necessary or good policies don’t mean anything.
“If one city, county or state is not allowing youth sports events, teams are traveling to places where it is legal.”
“Many parents and kids are struggling to balance the coronavirus risks with the rewards of playing sports.”
Is there more information on the benefits of mental health due to being able to have adaptive physical activities and how has that changed since the pandemic?
Tristen McCall
A new study of mice found that exercise makes it easier to bounce back from too much stress. The study found that “regular exercises increases the levels of a chemical in the animals’ brains that helps them remain psychologically resilient and plucky, even when their lives seem suddenly strange, intimidating and filled with threats,” according to The New York Times. “The study involved mice, but it is likely to have implications for our species, too, as we face the stress and discombobulation of the ongoing pandemic and today’s political and social disruptions.”
A recent University of Wisconsin study of 13,000 adolescent athletes nationally, conducted in May, found that physical activity had decreased by 50% during the pandemic. The survey also showed higher rates of anxiety and depression compared to past data of similar-aged athletes.
We will periodically answer youth sports parents’ questions in this Project Play Parent Mailbag. Got a question? Submit it in the form in this page’s sidebar or email jon.solomon@aspeninstitute.org.
