SI Report: Test Postive and Athletes Will Miss At Least 10 days of Competition
Playing college football in a COVID-19 world never was going to be easy.
A medical document created but not yet finalized for use among Power 5 conferences shows that football players who test positive for the virus this fall will be required to miss at least 10 days of competition.
The number is even higher — two full weeks — for players who are found to have been in contact with a person who tested positive.
Sports Illustrated obtained a copy of a draft of these documents, which are expected to be released soon by the Power 5 and the NCAA, which are working together to create universal, minimum testing standards.
The document will be released once it is approved. You can read Sports Illustrated national writer Ross Dellenger's story here.
In a full of month testing 187 athletes from all the sports, the University of Washington has reported just four positive cases involving COVID-19, with two individuals still listed as active cases as of this week. The school wouldn't specify if any of them were or are football players.
UW athletes must answer to strict protocols on facility entry, signing in and going through steady surveillance testing. No cases have been reported in the follow-up tests conducted.
The six-page Power 5 document outlines weekly in-season testing requirements, response protocols for positive tests, contact-tracing plans and considerations for game cancellations.
"This document is meant to guide institutions int he minimum necessary requirements needed to participate in athletics int he coming year," the paperwork reads.
College teams will be required to test football players within 72 hours of games using the standard PCR test. Game officials in football and basketball also will be tested weekly.
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