NCAA updates return-to-sport guidelines

The NCAA released its third installment of its return-to-sport guidelines on Thursday afternoon.

The guidelines are in place to best help student-athletes return to their respective sports in the safest ways possible.

Some of the recommendations listed in the newest guidelines are as followed:

Daily self-health checks.

The appropriate use of face coverings and social distancing during training, competition and outside of athletics.

Testing strategies for all athletics activities, including pre-season, regular season and post-season.

Testing and results within 72 hours of competition in high contact risk sports.

Member schools must adhere to public health standards set by their local communities.

“Any recommendation on a pathway toward a safe return to sport will depend on the national trajectory of COVID-19 spread,” said Brian Hainline, NCAA chief medical officer. “The idea of sport resocialization is predicated on a scenario of reduced or flattened infection rates.”

These recommendations were put into place by a number of organizations to ensure student-athletes are receiving the best advice upon their respective returns.

Among the organizations who came up with these steps are the NCAA COVID-19 Advisory Panel, American Medical Society for Sports Medicine (AMSSM) COVID-19 Working Group, Autonomy-5 Medical Advisory Group, National Medical Association, and NCAA Committee on Competitive Safeguards and Medical Aspects of Sports Prevention and Performance Subcommittee.

According to the NCAA, the guidance also takes into consideration recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“When we made the extremely difficult decision to cancel last spring’s championships it was because there was simply no way to conduct them safely,” NCAA President Mark Emmert said in the release. “This document lays out the advice of health care professionals as to how to resume college sports if we can achieve an environment where COVID-19 rates are manageable. Today, sadly, the data point in the wrong direction. If there is to be college sports in the fall, we need to get a much better handle on the pandemic.”

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