COLUMBUS – Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine will allow high school sports to continue this fall.

Both contact and non-contact sports will be permitted to move forward, but they could look quite different. DeWine’s administration will issue an order this week offering more details. 

“It’s not going to be your typical Friday night football in Ohio,” DeWine said. “But the young people are going to get to play.” 

Some changes include:

• Spectators will be limited to a small number of people close to the athlete, marching band member or other participants. Schools will determine who is allowed to attend.
• Local health department and Ohio High School Athletic Association officials will have site inspectors at contests to ensure social distancing and other health regulations are followed. 
• Teams and leagues can delay sports to the spring. 
• Students won’t need to be tested to participate in sports. DeWine said he anticipated most high schools wouldn’t have the resources to regularly test their athletes. 

Now school leaders, coaches and parents will face their own decisions. DeWine advised that schools in areas with greater spread should “think long and hard about having contact sports.” Students with health concerns might opt out. 

“These are all tough decisions. There’s not necessarily a right or wrong answer,” he said. “We just ask everyone to weigh everything, make the best individual decision for that child, for that team, for that school.”

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The health of the community will affect how young athletes are able to compete, said Dr. James Borchers, who specializes in sports medicine at the Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center.

A former football player, Borchers said he wouldn’t recommend sports for his children if the rate of cases was high in a community and testing is limited. Any student who tests positive for COVID-19 should see their doctor before returning to activities. 

DeWine’s decision comes as college leagues make plans for their fall seasons. University of Cincinnati’s American Athletic Conference plans to continue while the Mid-American Conference and Big Ten Conference delayed seasons till 2021. 

“That certainly gives us all pause,” DeWine said of certain conferences delaying their seasons. 

DeWine said he hopes sports will be an incentive for students and communities to follow best health practices regarding COVID-19. 

“If it goes off the rails, don’t doubt that we’ll step in,” he said. 

Ohio will also offer guidance in the coming days on how performing arts, both student and professional, can resume. 

Cases heading in right direction

Ohio reported 861 new COVID-19 cases between Monday and Tuesday – lower than the 21-day average of 1,116 new cases per day.

The rate of positive tests has also improved in the past month; the seven-day moving average slipped below 5% on Thursday and has remained there through Sunday, the most recent day for which that information is provided. That’s a benchmark for being able to control spread while keeping the economy open.

DeWine said lower new case numbers and positivity rates factored into his decision for sports to resume, but he said some parts of the state still have positivity rates in the double digits.

A staff member at an Ohio Veterans Home in Georgetown tested positive for COVID-19 – the first in that facility. All staff and any resident who might have been exposed were being tested. 

Over the past 24 hours, Ohio Department of Health reported 39 deaths related to COVID-19. That was higher than the 21-day average of 23 deaths. The date a case or death is reported can be days or weeks after it happened.

In total, 3,871 Ohioans have died and 109,923 have been infected by the novel coronavirus since the beginning of the pandemic. An estimated 934 COVID-19-positive patients were hospitalized on Tuesday, according to the Ohio Hospital Association. 

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