Walsh Jesuit High School canceled its Aug. 28 football season opener after two players on a team it scrimmaged the previous week tested positive for COVID-19 days later.

Wadsworth High School officials, meanwhile, pushed on with their school’s Week 1 game the same night against North Royalton even though one of Wadsworth’s players tested positive for COVID-19 that week.

Why would officials nix one game when no players tested positive and allow another to go forward despite a positive test?

Public health officials in Summit and Medina counties said it all comes down to school policy, contact tracing and how quickly officials can sort out who is — and isn’t — at risk after having contact with someone who is infected.

“From the outside, many of these cases may look the same because it’s all sports and [COVID-19],” Medina County Health Commissioner Krista Wasowski said. “But when we look at the cases, the date of symptom onset, the date and length of exposure and the proximity…they’re all unique.”

Most schools — and some businesses — have policies in place that are very cautious, Summit County Public Health Commissioner Donna Skoda said.

When someone connected to a team may have or has been exposed to COVID-19, they shut everything down without considering who is and isn’t at risk.

Contract tracers are more strategic, she said.

Although most of the public had never interacted with them, contact tracers have worked for generations to help identify and control the spread of communicable diseases like tuberculosis, HIV and measles.

They use the same scientific methodology across Ohio, so COVID-19 cases investigated in rural Appalachia are handled the same as in Akron, Columbus or Cincinnati, Skoda said.

In Summit County, public health contact tracers scramble within 24 hours of learning about any school-related case and begin tracking it backward.

“We find out where they were tested, how Mom found out,” Skoda said. “Schools give us contact names and we make contact with the families to find out if there was a significant amount of time spent together and whether they need to isolate or quarantine.”

Sometimes that information can’t be sorted in time to allow a game to go forward even if health officials determine there is no risk.

Walsh Jesuit is a good example.

On Aug. 28, after learning the team had been exposed during a scrimmage against Mayfield, high school President Karl Ertle and coaches did a play-by-play review of a video recording of the game. Walsh officials didn’t know the names of the infected Mayfield players, but did know their jersey numbers.

The recording showed that most Walsh players had less than 4 seconds of contact with either of the two infected Mayfield players during the scrimmage. At most, one Walsh player had 17 seconds of contact spread out over seven plays, Ertle said.

When school officials shared their findings with Summit County Public Health officials, the entire team was released from isolation and cleared to play within hours of their season opener Aug. 28.

It was too late for the game to go ahead that night, however, because the scheduled opponent, Chardon Notre Dame-Cathedral Latin, had already released its players to go home, Ertle said.

But the football players were free to return with the rest of their classmates when Walsh started the school year Sept. 1 and played their first game Friday.

In Wadsworth, there was a similar scramble to determine COVID-19 risk on Aug. 28.

That day, school officials learned a football player tested positive.

But the case was unusual because the player had little contact with the team in recent weeks because he was injured.

School officials said the player exercised with the team Aug. 24, but was always at least 6 feet from other players, who often remain 15 feet apart as an extra COVID-19 precaution.

The student didn’t return to practice and on Aug. 28, the school learned he tested positive for COVID-19 and immediately reached out to Medina County health officials.

The health department cleared the team for play — without the infected player.

Wadsworth clobbered North Royalton 54-21 that night and the next day, parents and students at both Wadsworth and North Royalton learned that a Wadsworth player missing from the game had tested positive.

Wadsworth schools sent an email to parents and posted a notice from school Superintendent Andy Hill on its Facebook page.

“Our protocols that involve daily symptom checks helped us in this situation and we continue to stress the importance of these checks before students go to school and/or practice,” Hill said.

Later, during an interview, Hill said transparency is important.

“The way you build trust and the way people feel comfortable…is to have an open and honest dialogue,” he said.

All schools and health departments continue to wrestle with privacy concerns.

They agree that names of those infected should not be released.

But schools vary widely on how much information they’re releasing and to whom.

Many school districts in Northeast Ohio have only been notifying parents, teachers and the school community through email about COVID-19 cases or outbreaks.

A few school districts, like Wadsworth, are sharing what they can with the wider community to quash rumors and speculation.

“It is really hard when people just see headlines and the details that are fact specific can’t be released because of privacy,” he said.

If schools don’t say anything, he said, people draw their own conclusions that may not be right.

During the first week Wadsworth schools returned to class — with all but about 950 of its 4,800 students opting for in-person classes — Hill posted three more notices on Facebook about COVID-19 impacting Wadsworth schools.

• On Sept. 1, a seventh-grade football game against Stow-Munroe Falls was postponed because of a possible player infection. That student later tested negative for COVID-19, Hill said.

• On Sept. 2, an Overlook Elementary School teacher tested positive. She had not been in the building since school resumed, but contact tracing led to five other employees at the school being quarantined, he said.

• On Sept. 3, a member of the JV and varsity football team tested positive and games against Stow-Munroe Falls scheduled for Sept. 4 and Sept. 5 were postponed.

The second Wadsworth football player to test positive was not connected to the first, Hill said.

Medina County health officials Friday were still conducting contact tracing in the latest case and it was not yet clear how many Wadsworth football players may be sidelined from play and from school for a couple weeks.

In the meantime, health officials warn people who might be at risk — or who are waiting for COVID-19 test results — to isolate at home, preferably away from family members, until they get the all clear from health officials.

On Facebook Friday, Wadsworth’s latest revelation about a second football player testing positive for COVID-19 drew mostly sympathy and expressions of prayer.

“Obviously, people care about kids,” Hill said. “They just want to know they’re safe.”