The CDC has recommended that schools cancel extracurricular activities football, wrestling, choir and band during the COVID surge.
The CDC released its updated guidance for COVID-19 prevention in schools on January 13, 2022, along with a map that shows 99% of US counties are at high-risk for transmission of the virus.
CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said in a statement, the agency “prioritized academics over athletics because of the increased risks involved in some extracurricular sports. When followed, our school guidance has been incredibly effective. In the fall, 99 percent of schools were able to remain open during the intense delta wave of COVID.”
The CDC gives football and wrestling as examples of high-risk sports and says that “high-risk extracurricular activities are those in which increased exhalation occurs, such as activities that involve singing, shouting, band, or exercise, especially when conducted indoors.”
Put simply however, schools, students and parents are ignoring the guidance. They argue that children’s mental health is more important than the children’s. actual health. “As we say in Tennessee, that dog won’t hunt,” said Dr. William Shaffer, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Lets face it, most people are over this pandemic and want life to return to normal, but the pandemic isn’t done with us.