Data about COVID-19 in high school sports lacks important context

By Nick Stevens, HighSchoolOT managing editor

Orange County schools will vote on a measure that would pause some high school sports — including football — and implement a series of strict protocols for other sports. The recommendation to the board of education comes after the N.C. Department of Health & Human Services released a report last week claiming 45% of COVID-19 clusters in North Carolina schools from July 1 through Sept. 2 involve athletics.

The headline was alarming, but it only scratched the surface of the issue.

DHHS did not point out some key context when it released this data, and after WRAL asked for clarification on a number of points, the data looks much less scary.

First, the DHHS release failed to point out that high school sports were happening throughout the summer — and not just fall sports, but all sports. The N.C. High School Athletic Association allows all sports to hold summer workouts in June and July before fall sports season officially starts at the beginning of August. Schools on a traditional calendar did not resume classes until mid- to late August, many the week of Aug. 23. Given that student-athletes were meeting throughout the summer, well before most students encountered each other in the classroom, it's actually impressive that sports don't account for a higher percentage of clusters. It's also a testament to the hard work coaches, athletic directors and student-athletes have been doing for over a year now to allow sports to happen in as safe a way as possible.

(Side note: I addressed this at length in my weekly newsletter last Friday. If you don't subscribe to my newsletter right now, sign up here!)

In terms of the data, DHHS told WRAL that it has identified 42 "athletics-related" clusters in North Carolina public, charter and private middle and high schools. Those clusters account for a total of 340 cases. But here's what the original release from DHHS didn't point out: the agency cannot say whether or not the clusters originated in athletics, only that athletic teams were affected by them, and the 340 cases are not all student-athletes, some are school staff members and other students who are not athletes but are counted in the "athletics-related" clusters.

Even if the 340 cases involved in 42 clusters were all athletes, within the context of the number of student-athletes in North Carolina, 340 cases is a very small percentage. The data released by DHHS includes middle and high school sports at public, charter and private schools. We do not have data that shows how many students participate in athletics in each of those settings, but the most recent sports participation data from the NCHSAA shows it had nearly 200,000 participants — covering all public high schools, a handful of charter high schools and four private schools.

The number of school sports participants in the pool of data DHHS is using would be much higher than 200,000, but even if we attribute all 340 cases to those 200,000 participants, we're looking at 0.17% of athletes involved in COVID-19 clusters. Keep in mind, DHHS doesn't know if these clusters originated in athletics. Individuals could have contracted COVID-19 in math class, at church, at the grocery store or at home, but because they play sports, it's being attributed to an "athletics-related" cluster.

DHHS ended its release about sports by urging people to get vaccinated. Only 35% of children ages 12-17 have been vaccinated, the agency said. Most will agree that there is an inherent risk in playing sports in the midst of a pandemic and that vaccination is the best way forward — I got my vaccine as soon as I was eligible, and I encourage everyone else to get the shot too — but I also wonder if we're targeting high school sports when they're not the population holding vaccination rates down in their age group.

Again, to my knowledge, this data does not exist on a statewide level for high school athletes. However, Orange County Schools released data on Monday that shows its student-athletes have a much higher vaccination rate than the general population of kids ages 12-17. Here are the vaccination rates for Orange County high school athletes:

• Cross Country - 83%
• Tennis - 83%
• Soccer - 73%
• Volleyball - 60%
• Football - 54%
• Cheerleading - 52%

These numbers aren't perfect, but they're better than average for that age group. If you think about it, it makes sense. High school athletes have been following protocols for the pandemic since last summer. They've been sacrificing, taking extra steps to keep sports going. It would not be surprising if they were more likely to get vaccinated.

We have a lot of work to do to get ourselves out of this pandemic. We need vaccination rates to go up. We need people to continue practicing certain mitigation protocols. But given the data that does exist, perhaps we should be leaning on high school athletics as a vehicle for that message and not holding the ability to participate over the heads of student-athletes based on incomplete data. When thousands of people show up at high school football games on Friday nights, that would be a great opportunity for vaccination clinics. Where are the PA announcements at games sponsored by DHHS encouraging vaccination? How about distributing an information video about the vaccine for schools to share at parent meetings at the beginning of sports seasons?

The reality is that there is a risk in playing sports, there are cases in athletics, transmission happens in athletics, but there is no real data that shows athletics in North Carolina is causing a surge of COVID-19 cases in schools. There is plenty of evidence, however, that high school athletics can be part of the plan to end this pandemic.