What Would Happen if an Ole Miss Athlete Contracted COVID-19, pt. 1

All signs seem to be trending towards football being played in the fall. But what would happen if we bring these athletes back to Oxford and they then test positive for COVID-19? Part 1 of a 2 part dive.

Everyone wants to know when the football season will start and when Ole Miss athletes will start arriving in Oxford. 

We can speculate all we want, but the truth is that no one knows when that will happen. Who is making those decisions? That we have a better idea of. 

Both Ole Miss and the SEC have specific COVID-19 tasks forces involved in making decisions on when to bring athletes back to campus, obviously doing so in congruence with state and local regulations. 

Dr. Marshall Crowther isn't the sole decision maker in Oxford, but the Ole Miss Athletics Medical Director is heavily involved in that decision making from an advisory standpoint. Both at Ole Miss and within the conference, he's one of the more heard voices in the group.  

Over the next several months, for better or worse, athletes will be back on campus in Oxford and around the nation. Greg Sankey, the commissioner of the SEC, said last week that the conference would explore playing football alone if other conferences do not. The President of the University of Alabama said last week that there will be a college football season this fall. 

All signs seem to be trending towards football being played, to some degree, in the fall. But what would happen if we bring back these athletes and they then test positive for COVID-19? 

That's what we're going to be looking at over these next two days, with the help of Dr. Marshall Crowther. First up: a look at how the virus would effect a young person, and how normal training and rehabilitation regimens were thrown off from the impact of the last two months.

As the medical director for Ole Miss athletics, Crowther acts as the primary caretaker for every sport at Ole Miss and also sees regular students on campus. He oversees all teams' training staffs and helps with on-campus policies and medical decision making. Obviously, right now, a lot of that decision making revolves around COVID-19 procedures and precautions. 

When talking about coronavirus, Crowther states, it's pretty clear at this point that the Rebel athletes themselves aren't the at-risk population: those that experience the most severe form of the virus are the elderly and those with chronic conditions. These athletes are young, in shape, and less prone to chronic cardiovascular or pulmonary conditions. 

However, what they can theoretically do is transmit the virus, particularly to older staff that they may be in contact when they return to campus. Additionally, they are still at risk themselves, Crowther says. Prolonged, intense sessions of strenuous training and exercise has a negative effect to the overall immune function, even in very healthy, young people. 

"Theoretically, during these episodes of intense training, the immune system may temporarily be not as effective at fighting off infections such as COVID-19. That's a potential concern," Crowther said. "And then the other thing you have to remember is that athletes in sports like football, there's obvious opportunities for increased transmission due to close physical contact."

As of May 2, the most recent available data, there have been 7,550 diagnosed cases of COVID-19 in Mississippi, with 303 individuals passing away due to the virus. Of the 7,550 cases, 1,301 have been accompanied with serious enough symptoms to warrant hospitalization. Zero of the deaths and only 47 of the hospitalizations (3.6-percent) come from those under the age of 30 – the demographic group Ole Miss athletes fall under.

Therefore, most young people that contract the virus are asymptomatic. 

However, there is a potential impact on athletic performance, even amongst asymptomatic individuals. If a player is to contract the virus, but is otherwise asymptomatic and healthy in standard life, it could cause them to have decreased aerobic capacity and decreased lung function on the field when undergoing intense training. 

"Coronavirus hasn't been around long enough to fully study in an athletics population. But there is enough concern there that us sports medicine physicians are really looking at it and how it effects Ole Miss athletes," Crowther said. "We do pre-participation exams on everyone, regardless, but we're going to be putting a higher importance on that to try and see if we can find any underlying issues."

There are also a myriad of less obvious side-effects that have nothing to do with contracting the virus whatsoever. 

When Ole Miss shut down campus about six weeks ago, sending all students and athletes home, that hit a massive pause on any sort of regimented training schedule many of these athletes are accustomed to. Sure, athletes can go for a run at home or lift some free weights sitting around the house, but for the most part all gyms and other facilities are the country are closed. 

Any standard interruptions to training will have detrimental effects on endurance, overall aerobic captivity and in some instances maybe even muscle mass. The longer athletes are away from campus, the more pronounced those effects.  

Crowther estimates that it will take the average athlete that has kept in some baseline shape a minimum of 10 to 14 days to get from that baseline shape back to football shape. Thankfully, this is something he says coaches have been receptive too in conversations over the prior month. 

"I've already had discussions with our coaching staffs about that, just making sure not to rush back into anything," Crowther said. "The strength and conditioning coaches are specialized to help with that process, too. In general, it just involves working back slowly with less intense and shorter workouts, ramping that up over 14-day periods, maybe longer."

Another underlying, seemingly hidden issue involves those currently rehabbing injuries. Crowther said there are a number of Ole Miss athletes currently dealing with post-operative rehabilitation that have needed well-supervised, in-clinic rehab. 

Some of those cases have been treated, in limited capacity, on campus in a way that adheres to social distancing orders. However, most have been referred to private, local physical therapists near their hometowns. Ole Miss has covered all of those medical and rehabilitation bills. 

And then there's the mental health side of things. Over the past handful of years, the Rebel athletics department has invested much more into mental health, something they're trying to continue to do now, even without those on campus. Dr. Josie Nicholson, who leads the Ole Miss Health and Sport Performance staff, counsels all athletes that deal with injury, performance anxiety and depression, among other things. 

But now, a big part of that staff's role is to provide counsel to all athletes who are going through a tough time – uncertainty in the sport many of them find their identity in. But that counseling is still taking place. Any athlete that had ongoing relationships with the sports psychologists, those that had been seeing psychologists regularly, have still been able to continue those sessions virtually, through Zoom meetings. 

There's a lot more going on here than meets the eye. Sure, athletes are at risk of contracting and spreading COVID-19, even if that risk may not be too serious to them as individuals. But the lingering effects of the distancing may be hitting them harder than the virus itself.  

Tomorrow, in part two of our series, we'll take a look at Ole Miss' tentative plan to re-integrate athletes to Oxford and what measures would have to take place if a football player tested positive in the midst of training camp.

For What Would Happen if an Ole Miss Athlete Contracted COVID-19, pt. 2, click here.

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