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

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 2 of the two-part series.

All signs point to an eventual return of football this fall. 

That said, aspects of the game are simply going to be different following the coronavirus outbreak. There's a chance we could see football played in empty stadiums or have a delayed season played without non-conference games. However, it seems like football in some sense will be played.

Playing football and brining athletes back to the Ole Miss campus presents some inherent risks. In part one of our What Would Happen if an Ole Miss Athlete Contracted COVID-19 series, we examined 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.

Today, in part two, 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.

Ole Miss athletics director Keith Carter said the school is targeting a date of July 1 to bring athletes back to campus. Anything after that date would likely impact the fall sport seasons starting on time. 

According to Dr. Marshall Crowther, the Ole Miss Athletics Medical Director, a critical part of safely brining athletes back will be finding readily available coronavirus testing.  

"The hope, and we anticipate this being a reality, is that we have tests for everyone by the time students and athletes start coming back over the next few months," Crowther said. "We anticipate being able to adequately test players frequently."

Now, testing is something that the United States has put an increased priority on of late. States are testing for COVID-19 at higher rates now than ever and there's been a national push to increase testing production and capabilities. 

Crowther states that in an ideal world, the school would be able to test everyone involved with the football program the day they return to campus. If everyone tested negative then you you quarantine them in a place like a hotel and can therefore conduct full practices in an essential bio-dome as if nothing is wrong outside. Obviously, we don't live in a utopian society and that's not exactly realistic. 

"The problem is, the only way to do that is to basically lock everybody up in a hotel and restrict all access," Crowther said. "Most people think that's not practical. Plus, how long do you do that for? You can't really do that indefinitely. A blanket quarantine initially isn't really practical."

Instead, and these protocols are still not finalized, Ole Miss will likely end up pre-screening athletes and staff as best they can when they return to campus, slowly brining back groups to make sure there's not a massive outbreak.

Once athletes are on campus, there will be extra measures taken to ensure some sort of adherence to social distancing protocols, even in a sport like football where close contact is just part of the game. Weight rooms and other training facilities will limit the number of student-athletes in the room at a time, trying to adhere as best as possible to social distancing protocols. 

All this prompts an obvious question. What happens if a Rebel football player tests positive for COVID-19 halfway through training camp? 

On an individual basis, we know how to handle this. Once the individual receives the positive test results, he or she would have to go into a solo isolation at home (or in a hospital if symptoms are severe enough). The criterion for being removed from isolation include being three days removed from having a fever and a significant improvement of respiratory symptoms. One also has to be a minimum of seven days post-symptom onset to be removed from quarantine. 

But how would that athlete or staff member testing positive effect the rest of the program? That's a question with a much less understood playbook. 

Crowther and others on the team's medical staff would have to determine who on the team (players or staff) have had close contact with the athlete that tested positive. All of those individuals would then have to be quarantined themselves for two weeks.  

There exists a theoretical world in which Ole Miss would have to go through training camp without a head coach or coordinator physically present, because that person is in quarantine after interacting with a player or staff member that tested positive for COVID-19.

Is this likely? Well no. But it's the sort of questions Crowther and all medical staffs around the SEC and the nation have had to answer over the past few weeks in order to feel safe about the prospect of bringing athletes back to campus. 

Does Crowther support brining athletes back anytime soon? To that, he gave no answer. 

He's on both the Ole Miss task force to make such a decision and serves as the Ole Miss representative on the SEC task force. He's just an advisor to both, not the decision maker. Publicly, he did not want to give an individual opinion on that matter. 

"We're all wrestling back-and-forth with it. I don't think that there's a good answer to that, at least at this time," Crowther said. "We want to get everybody back as quickly as possible, but it certainly has to be done in a safe manner... But it'll be a lot determined locally, in different areas. there may be some parts of the country that will be able to bring athletes back sooner than others."

On Monday, Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves began easing social distancing regulations in the state. Parks re-opened to the public with regulations of people maintaining 6-feet of social distancing. Outdoor activities are still limited to groups of 20 people with indoor gathers on a limit of 10 people.

For athletes to come back to Oxford and start practicing, these restrictions will have to be eased yet again. Will that happen by July 1, as Carter is targeting? Time will tell. But this interim time is being use to put these protocols in place, for whenever the return to Oxford and start of fall sport practices may happen. 

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

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