Sports, COVID Collide As Practices Begin

By Denise Seyfer

PORT WASHINGTON—High school athletes are being exposed to COVID-19, while participating at their practices, and they are being quarantined. Washington-Ozaukee Public Health Director Kirsten Johnson presented her update to the Ozaukee County’s Health and Human Services Committee on Tuesday.

Johnson and her staff’s main focus now is on high school sports and athletes. The public health department is also assisting school districts with their reopening plans. Johnson stated that as kids interact, there will be cases. How many cases that will be overall remains unknown, however.

“We’re anticipating a significant increase in workload,” she said. “The other piece we are grappling with now is kids who are currently exposed at sports practice, [and] are now quarantined,” she said, “that runs into the first week of school.”

This affects who will be able to go to school on the first day.

“That’s really what’s taking up a majority of our time,” Johnson said.

No one questioned the health director if the athletes that tested positive were asymptomatic or symptomatic and to what extent.

When asked which schools experienced COVID-19 cases with its athletes and the number found to be positive, the public health department responded in an email.

“There have been a number of student athletes from various districts, but we are not releasing district investigations until the week of Sept. 8,” said Bailey Murph, Senior Public Health Strategist for the Washington-Ozaukee Public Health Department.

The Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association sent out a news release on Aug.14, detailing which sports were low risk vs. high risk, and what dates they could start practices. The low-risk fall sports include girls golf, girls tennis, girls swimming and diving, boys and girls cross country, which started on Aug.17. The high-risk fall sports are girls and boys volleyball, boys soccer and football. Those can begin on Sept. 7.

Currently, Ozaukee County has one person in charge of 10 contact tracers that will be working specifically with county school districts. They need to decide who has been exposed, who has not; who gets excluded and who does not.

“That person has already been overwhelmed by the workload,” the director said, adding it's only been a week.

Regarding COVID-19 cases the past few weeks, Johnson said, “we have seen a decline in Ozaukee,” compared to Washington County. They just started their decline over the past couple days, she said.

Kathlyn Geracie, Cedarburg Supervisor and Health and Human Services Committee Chairperson, asked if the current decline will have an effect on the county’s high label metric.

“It will remain the same,” Johnson said.

There are 882 active cases of COVID-19 in Ozaukee County, as of Monday night.

The article will be updated if and when more information becomes available.