NC State pauses football, athletics due to coronavirus cluster within the program
N.C. State announced Monday that all athletic-related activities are suspended due to a coronavirus cluster within its sports programs.
In a statement on its website, N.C. State reported 27 cases within its athletic department, and of those, not all are athletes.
A cluster is defined by the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services as five or more individuals.
“Based on the information available to us, we are making the necessary and swift decision to pause athletic-related activities until we have additional information,” athletic director Boo Corrigan said in a press release statement. “We will continue to work with all appropriate parties to evaluate the most responsible path moving forward and will provide further details when available.”
According to its campus dashboard, N.C. State has reported 457 positive cases of COVID-19 since March, with 416 of those cases being students.
Last week, the school announced that all undergrad classes will move online for the rest of the fall semester.
Chancellor Randy Woodson announced the decision in a school-wide email, citing off-campus gatherings, clusters of the coronavirus in Greek Village houses and more than 500 students who are forced to quarantine themselves because of their exposure to COVID-19. The school announced three new clusters on Monday.
On Aug. 14 N.C. State released the results of a third round of tests administered within the athletics department.
That same day, Fred Demarest, senior AD for communications, said the Wolfpack had administered 1,360 tests to athletes, coaches and staff since June, with eight total positive results. That number includes 765 tests administered and one new positive case from July 31 through Aug. 14.
One parent says students in quarantine
Ann Davis, a parent of an N.C. State student told the News & Observer on Monday that her son’s roommate tested positive for COVID-19. Davis said her son’s roommate is a student trainer within the athletics program.
Davis said her son lives with four other students, including the student trainer. None of the housemates showed any symptoms and all five are currently in quarantine in their off-campus apartment, she said.
Davis said three of her son’s roommates got tested at the on-campus Health Center this morning. Her son was able to secure a test at a local urgent care later in the afternoon.
The roommate got his test results back on Sunday via email.
“He told the other roommates, he is quarantined in his room,” Davis said. “As of this morning my son has not been contacted by a contract tracer.”
Earlier this month, Demarest said the football program was testing weekly. According to the ACC Medical Advisory Group (MAG) testing protocols, “team members” include athletes, coaches and “any support staff member that is in regular, in-person contact with student-athletes.” Trainers are considered support staff according to the MAG protocols.
The MAG protocols do recommend that each school “attempt to keep support staff members with direct student-athletes contact to a minimum.”
This story was originally published August 24, 2020 at 6:15 PM.
