A COVID cluster halted Duke football. Here’s when the Blue Devils plan to return
After two weeks away from the practice field due to a COVID-19 cluster, Duke football is ready to safely resume spring practice.
With enough players having cleared their quarantines following positive tests and contact tracing, the Blue Devils plan to hold their fourth spring practice session Wednesday, athletics department spokesman Art Chase said.
Duke started spring practice Feb.26 and last practiced on March 3. The postponed practices scheduled for March 5 and March 6 and announced the program was officially on pause March 9.
In total, five practice sessions were postponed during the pause. The team plans to make them up, allowing Duke to use the full 15 spring practice sessions allowed under NCAA rules.
Duke has practices scheduled for Wednesday, Friday and Saturday this week.
When Duke announced the program’s pause, the school said 10 players were in isolation. They had attended team activities together.
Last Saturday night, Duke’s administration placed all undergraduate students in a ‘stay-in-place’ order due to a surge in COVID-19 cases on campus. School leaders pointed to unauthorized fraternity rush events as the cause.
The stay-in-place order is in place through Sunday, but school leaders plan to revisit that on Thursday.
In an update Tuesday, Duke said it administered nearly 22,000 COVID-19 tests to students, faculty and staff from March 8-14. The results showed 231 positive cases, including 211 among students.
After the school recorded 241 positive cases throughout the entire fall semester, the 231 positive cases last week mark the highest single-week total Duke has seen during the pandemic.
All classes are now online and undergraduate students are confined to their residences, except for when they are going for food, exercise or COVID-19 tests.
Athletic teams, though, have further allowances.
Duke athletics director Kevin White shared guidelines with athletes and staff Saturday night, allowing for practices and competitions as scheduled.
Individual training outside of practices must be completed by the athletes by themselves. In those situations, such as shooting a basketball or running, guidelines stipulate two or more people are not allowed on the same half of a court or field.
All meals for athletes are served grab-and-go style.
While working on conditioning, such as weight lifting, athletes must be masked and continue to follow the other mitigation strategies already in place, like cleaning measures. Athletes are encouraged to double-mask when possible.
All team meetings are done virtually.
White made it clear that all undergraduate athletes must follow the stay-in-place rules when not engaged in the allowed activities.
Even though athletic staff members aren’t subject to the stay-in-place order, White encouraged them to follow the restriction and help enforce it.