The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) issued updated guidelines for youth and recreational sports in the state on Monday, which includes the continued pause on all organized competition through at least Jan. 25.
California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) officials, who govern high school sports in the state, have anxiously awaited the updated guidelines, which had experienced multiple delays until they were finally released Monday.
The main feature of the updated guidelines is the categorization of various sports into the four colored tiers applied to counties across the state based on their test positivity and adjusted case rates for COVID-19, as outlined in California’s “Blueprint for a Safer Economy” reopening plan.
Chart courtesy of California Department of Public Health.
Whichever tier a county falls under, determines which sports are permitted to compete.
The CDPH assessed risk level based on each sport’s level of contact and whether it is an indoor or outdoor sport.
The levels of contact were defined as follows:
- Low-Contact: Individual or small group sports where contact within six feet of other participants can be avoided. Some of these sports have relatively low exertion rates that allow for consistent wearing of face coverings when within six feet of other people.
- Moderate-Contact: Team sports that can be played with only incidental or intermittent close contact between participants.
- High-Contact: Team sports with frequent or sustained close contact (and in many cases, face-to-face contact) between participants and high probability that respiratory particles will be transmitted between participants. Indoor sports are higher risk than outdoor sports due to reduced ventilation.
With the recent ongoing surge of COVID-19 cases across California, the vast majority of counties in California remain in the plan’s most restrictive purple tier and Los Angeles County is under a Regional Stay at Home Order triggered Dec. 3, when the county’s ICU capacity dropped below 15 percent, which leaves the likelihood of a football season in the 2020-21 school year looking increasingly slim.
Related: Regional California Stay-At-Home Order To Be Issued By Governor Newsom
Football falls under the orange tier, which Los Angeles County has not reached at any point since the rollout of the state’s reopening plan. Even as case numbers continue to climb, some have speculated that the upcoming holiday travel may only worsen the situation in the coming weeks, as was seen in the aftermath of travel for the Thanksgiving holiday.
Regardless of a county’s status, however, all inter-team competition remains prohibited in California until Jan. 25, 2021, at the earliest. That date is expected to be reassessed on Jan. 4, according to the CDPH.
While some club teams in the state have continued to participate in out-of-state tournaments against the advice of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the CDPH document states teams must not participate in out-of-state tournaments.
The full release from the CDPH on the updated guidelines is available here.
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