Michigan Athletics Suspended Due to B.1.1.7. COVID-19 Outbreak
The Michigan Daily’s Ethan Sears reports that the state health department is shutting down Michigan athletics for at least two weeks, in order to prevent an outbreak of the more contagious British variant of COVID-19. MDHHS issued recommendations that the university shut down all athletics and quarantine all members. It is typical when a scientific government agency issues guidance that the entity will treat that as orders.
The Daily reports there are already five cases of the variant within Michigan’s athletic department, and that the original carrier from the U.K. was a Michigan athlete.
The first case of B.1.1.7. was brought back by a U-M athlete. This order won't affect MSU or any other state school.
— Ethan Sears (@ethan_sears) January 24, 2021
This was confirmed by Brendan Quinn:
Can also confirm reporting from The Michigan Daily that the Michigan heath dept. plan to suspend Michigan athletics — inc mbb and wbb — for upwards of 2 weeks after a positive for B.1.1.7 COVID-19 variant.
— Brendan Quinn (@BFQuinn) January 24, 2021
More details coming. Not sure on timing of a formal announcement.
…and one of our sources as well.
A two-week lockdown would mean athletics can resume, at the earliest, on February 7th. Michigan basketball was scheduled to play a rescheduled game with Penn State on Jan 27. Games with Indiana (1/30), Northwestern (2/3), and MSU (2/6), would also presumably be postponed due to the shutdown. Hockey would have to reschedule its Wednesday-Thursday home series against Penn State scheduled for 2/3 and 2/4. Women’s basketball was set to play rescheduled games with MSU in a packed schedule that will now have to find another time to play Purdue (1/24), at MSU (1/26), MSU (1/28), at Rutgers (2/1), and Minnesota (2/4).
Officials have been warning the public since last week that at least one case of B.1.1.7. was in Washtenaw County. The county health department sent out an exposure notice on Saturday morning for the Saline Meijer and Briarwood Mall last Sunday:
Washtenaw County Health Department is now aware of a possible public exposure. Brief, public exposures are not normally a COVID-19 exposure concern but the B117 variant is more easily transmitted and could lead to more cases, hospitalizations, and deaths.
As a precaution, the Health Department recommends immediate COVID-19 testing for anyone in the following locations at the specific times provided:
- Sun, Jan 17 at the Meijer on Ann Arbor Saline Rd., Ann Arbor MI from 9:00 to 10:00 am
- Sun, Jan 17 Briarwood Mall, 100 Briarwood Circle, Ann Arbor MI from 1:00 to 2:00 pm
According to the CDC the B.1.1.7. variant, which originated in the United Kingdom last September, has an usually large number of mutations and is associated with a markedly higher rate of transmission, but not a greater severity of symptoms nor resistance to the vaccine. The decision comes in the middle of turnover at the state Health Department. Former MDHHS Director Robert Gordon resigned on Friday, and is expected to be taking a senior position with the national department. New director Elizabeth Hertel was promoted Friday from the deputy position at MDHHS.
We’ll add an official post from the athletics department when it’s available.
UPDATE 10:30PM 1/23/2021: The university has put out a press release:
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Under a Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) decision made Saturday (Jan. 23), the University of Michigan Athletic Department will immediately pause athletic activities in all sports, including games, team and individual training sessions, until further notice and up to 14 days.
While U-M has worked diligently on testing and reporting within state and Big Ten Conference guidelines, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services is mandating a more aggressive strategy for this B.1.1.7 variant, which exceeds current program efforts designed around the standard form of the virus.
The mandate follows positive test results for the SAR-CoV-2 B.1.1.7 variant virus infections from several individuals linked to the U-M Athletic Department through its diligent testing regiment. The B.1.1.7 variant is thought to be approximately 50 percent more transmissible than the standard form of the virus, leading to faster spread of the virus, potentially increased numbers of cases, and additional hospitalizations and deaths. Therefore, a pause of all athletic activities and a closure of all U-M athletic facilities are being taken to strengthen the public health intervention. Team members (student-athletes, coaches, and team staff) must immediately isolate/quarantine effective Jan. 23 until further notice and up to 14 days (Feb. 7).
"Canceling competitions is never something we want to do, but with so many unknowns about this variant of COVID-19, we must do everything we can to minimize the spread among student-athletes, coaches, staff, and to the student-athletes at other schools," said Warde Manuel, the Donald R. Shepherd Director of Athletics.
University public health officials are working closely with the Washtenaw County Health Department and Michigan Department of Human Health Services on additional mitigation strategies to address the COVID-19 B.1.1.7 variant in the university community. The university will be carefully considering additional mitigation measures. There are many unknowns that remain under investigation by U-M, local and state public health officials.
No determination has been made on how the pause may impact scheduled games beyond Feb. 7.
Hopefully the lockdown can contain the spread of the variant, those who have been infected don’t get seriously ill, and everyone can get healthy as soon as possible. There is no content after the jump.
January 23rd, 2021 at 10:26 PM ^
A butterfly in London flaps its wings and it rains in Ann Arbor.
Edit: Here’s the statement from the athletic’s department:
My question: What does “up to 14 days” mean? Could it be less?January 23rd, 2021 at 10:38 PM ^
More like Mothra than a butterfly
January 23rd, 2021 at 10:45 PM ^
What does “up to 14 days” mean? Could it be less?
I imagine they'll closely monitor the case spread and adjust accordingly
January 23rd, 2021 at 10:57 PM ^
Yea, that’s what I was thinking. It’s just weird that every news outlet is saying “for 2 weeks” if there’s a chance that it could be less than 2 weeks.
January 24th, 2021 at 12:07 AM ^
I hope there is some wiggle room there. I can understand pausing things right now to figure out how much spread there has been, but if a week from now we still have no cases on certain teams, I think you can justify restarting them.
January 23rd, 2021 at 10:26 PM ^
So one Michigan athlete did not take proper precautions, and now the entire department is shut down. Whoever that was - nice work!
January 23rd, 2021 at 10:36 PM ^
This is quite an assumption.
January 23rd, 2021 at 10:39 PM ^
According to reports, this strain was introduced by a student-athlete who had returned from the UK.
January 23rd, 2021 at 10:44 PM ^
The story I am hearing is someone visited the UK and brought this back with them. This mutation has been a problem in the UK for a while. Why is the US allowing anyone to enter this country from the UK without mandatory quarantine and testing? If the party that purportedly brought this back from the UK was there recently on University business, then WTF is going on?
January 24th, 2021 at 1:19 AM ^
It's been circling around the country for months. Strain represents about ten percent of cases in San Diego and it's expected to be dominant within a few months.
January 24th, 2021 at 7:52 AM ^
Yeah, this is baffling.
We can't go to CANADA FFS, but any jackass wanting to take a vacay to the UK can come and go as they please?
This whole pandemic has been a complete clusterfuck in the US over over a year now and I'm getting tired of it. It all should have been controlled down to almost zero back in the summer.
January 24th, 2021 at 9:04 AM ^
That we could have controlled this down to zero over the is not accurate. Virtually every country is struggling with surging cases - the US is no different. This is not to say that the US can’t do better than it is doing - mask usage isn’t what it should be, for example - but it is virtually impossible to contain a microscopic, highly-contagious, airborne illness. As an example, look at California, which has amongst the strictest lockdowns, but at the same time, amongst the worst current number of cases, hospitalizations deaths, etc. Contrast that with Florida, which is experiencing a significantly less-severe outbreak despite having full-contact sports for kids, filled arenas, allowing weddings and other celebrations, etc. I’m not disagreeing that there are things that people can do to help - mask up, try to avoid super-spreader events, if you travel, test before and after you return (and quarantine until you test after return), but aside from that, we realistically can’t do that much more to control covid. Hopefully, enough people take the vaccine (and it continues to work on new strains) - combined with the number of people who have already had covid, once we get enough people vaccinated (all ALL at risk populations such as seniors and those with pre-existing conditions related to covid, as well as front-line workers that are likely to come in repeated contact with carriers) , that’s the only way we will really control this disease.
January 24th, 2021 at 11:07 AM ^
The situation in the US is very different. Compare the US population to the rest of the world and then look at the number of cases and deaths in the US to worldwide reporting statistics.
US cases and deaths are disproportionately high and no other country with a significant population is in the running.
IMO it is about not having a national policy that is effective. CV would have gotten here to be sure but it didn't have to be anything near what it has become in the US. We can't shut the place down again but we had better get vaccinations going in s hurry. One of these days, a variant may not be treatable by current vaccines or have the same level of mortality.
January 24th, 2021 at 11:31 AM ^
US cases are high because we are doing more testing as a percentage of the population than any other country. US deaths are higher because we count as covid deaths anyone who dies “with covid” as opposed to other countries that count only people who die “from covid” as a covid death (ex: the guy in Florida who was hit by a car while driving his motorcycle, and the guy in philly who was shot, both counted as covid deaths). Also, US deaths are concentrated in the places that have been doing the most lockdowns, mask mandates and restrictions. Taking that into account, what national strategy would you have recommended?
January 24th, 2021 at 11:45 AM ^
Also, US deaths are concentrated in the places that have been doing the most lockdowns, mask mandates and restrictions.
That's just not true. Go look at the statistics by state and county yourself. It's not hard to find.
January 24th, 2021 at 11:50 AM ^
I mean, Canada vs US might be a better comparison. Florida has less COVID deaths, but a 25% higher death rate per capita. Some of the more strict lockdowns, like NZ, Singapore and HK have death rates 95% lower than the US. I am not sure that your interpretation of events is well supported by the data. Poverty, density, access to health care have something to say as well. Perhaps one alternative is that lockdowns generally follow epidemics, whereas the opposite (lockdowns to prevent epidemics) are politically much more difficult to implement in the US.
January 24th, 2021 at 12:00 PM ^
The US is ranked 17th in the world for the number of tests per unit of population.
Using your logic, not very many people would die from the flu.
People live with comborbidities that aflict over 40 percent of the population. The question you should ask is "but for CV19, would the patient have died?"
Data is your friend if you choose to do the not so heavy lifting and do some homework.
January 24th, 2021 at 1:52 PM ^
there is such a small portion of the population right now that has immunity it is highly unlikely that varients will develop to.overcome immunity right now. as vaccinations and resolved infection increase, this does increase the pressure to.overcome immunity. however, coronaviruses tend to evolve slowly from what i have read.
January 24th, 2021 at 2:26 PM ^
There were over 12,000 mutations of SARS-CoV-2 when this Nature article was written this past September:
January 24th, 2021 at 11:43 AM ^
Florida has a slightly higher CoViD death rate than California. Not sure how one could contrast the severity of outbreaks . . .
January 25th, 2021 at 12:59 PM ^
Is it fun to just make up nonsense and pass it off as fact? Or are you really this dumb?
January 24th, 2021 at 12:02 PM ^
European countries brought Covid numbers down almost to zero over the summer. Then it came back with a vengeance in the fall.
The fundamental problem is that most of us don't have immunity to this. As long as that's the case, the pandemic will continue. It may have ebbs and flows, but it won't end. Only by mass vaccination or infection will it end.
January 24th, 2021 at 1:31 AM ^
From the Freep article on this: The state's patient zero had a negative coronavirus test two days before she traveled Jan. 3 from the U.K. to the U.S.
January 24th, 2021 at 10:42 AM ^
Smart to get tested, remain in UK 2 more days, then fly home.
/s
January 24th, 2021 at 12:48 PM ^
How long did it take for her to get her results? It takes around two days here. So that would give her just enough time to get her negative result and catch her flight.
January 24th, 2021 at 10:59 AM ^
So basically they were tested for no reason. Cool.
January 23rd, 2021 at 10:27 PM ^
Fack.
That is all.
January 23rd, 2021 at 11:43 PM ^
Fack, funk, fuack, fink....that is all.
January 23rd, 2021 at 10:29 PM ^
Obviously wishing any of those infected a speedy recovery and no further spread, but do we know why they decided to shut down the entire department? The problem with this approach for example would be if no one on a particular team has it they have not only stopped playing, but don’t fall into the “already infected” category and run the risk of getting shut down again. I realize safety is the #1 priority here but why not quarantine the athletes/teams involved only? Do they all eat together and hang out all season? Without all the details, this feels like overkill IMO.
January 23rd, 2021 at 10:32 PM ^
The variant is 50% more contagious than the original strain. It was done for safety. I rather have the MDHHS do it now as opposed to not doing it enough.
January 23rd, 2021 at 10:33 PM ^
Co-signed
January 23rd, 2021 at 10:36 PM ^
British strain is much more virulent and could be up to 30% more deadly.
Fuck. That is all.
January 23rd, 2021 at 10:50 PM ^
Where did you see that mortality statistic? Everything I’ve seen says that there isn’t any evidence that it’s worse, just that it spreads more
January 23rd, 2021 at 10:55 PM ^
Boris Johnson held a presser recently citing UK studies regarding B117.
January 23rd, 2021 at 11:45 PM ^
"could be" is an excellent disclaimer. As good as "if true.".
January 23rd, 2021 at 10:52 PM ^
It IS more contagious. It is NOT known to be more deadly, or vaccine resistant.
I'm curious which team(s) the positive individuals were on and who they had contact with. I understand the full shut down as a precaution, but I think it could've been initially shorter (5-7 days) to allow time for adequate contact tracing, and then extended to 14 days on a team by team basis (or for the full department, if there was still uncertainty). A shorter initial window would've given them options to rationally respond as more information comes, this move doesn't. But, would rather have 14 days than 0 days, better safe than sorry overall. Hard to get this stuff perfect.
All in all, just hope whoever has it recovers and that they're able to effectively quarantine/stop the spread from here on out. However, the UK variant is likely going to become the predominant US strain within a few months, it's already in many states & is fairly inevitable. Hopefully by the time it becomes more widespread the vaccines will be a bigger impediment to spread and death. We really need to get shots in arms ASAP.
January 23rd, 2021 at 10:57 PM ^
If you have a higher rate of spread, that means more cases and that means more people will die just from the number of infections.
If there were ever a reason to get people vaccinated ASAP, this is it.
Under the Defense Production Act, can the US government order that vaccine not be shipped out of the country?
January 24th, 2021 at 9:09 AM ^
The statement that because it is more contagious it will lead to more death is technically accurate, but a bit simplistic. If the new variant is no more deadly, then it would depend on who it spreads to. If it spreads to our entire b-ball team, which is essentially on a bubble-lite and is tested every few days, then it might not be more contagious because healthy college-age individuals have a near-zero mortality rate from covid. If the b-ball team then spreads it to others - not disputing that this is possible - then there is a possibility of more death because of the level of contagiousness.
January 23rd, 2021 at 10:57 PM ^
British govt seems to think otherwise on the deadly part. Posted the study citation in my other post above.
January 23rd, 2021 at 11:30 PM ^
I just used the CDC's website and linked to it because this stuff is well beyond what I can confidently report on.
January 24th, 2021 at 7:49 AM ^
yes, and we know how some members of the board like to freak out when you guys inject “opinion” and “politics.”
January 24th, 2021 at 7:57 AM ^
I disagree re: the initial time announcement. Psychologically, if you give a (close to) 'worse case' timeframe, and over estimate, that can lead to better states of mentality to deal with the known timing you've outlined.
If you sat "5-7 days we hope" you're setting an expectation and if you're wrong, that ca go south quickly. Like the "Social Psychology" Ep of Community where you keep telling people it'll be 5 mins and every 5 mins you say sorry, it'll be 5 more mins.
Plan for the worst, hope for the best.
January 24th, 2021 at 9:41 AM ^
You expect logic?
January 23rd, 2021 at 10:43 PM ^
While this sucks, I do understand it. The UK variant is apparently almost twice as contagious and masks don't do much to stop it
January 23rd, 2021 at 10:56 PM ^
Yeah, not great. Does feel a little ominous regarding college hoops in totality for the rest of the year if this variant starts making its rounds (which seems likely) and leading to 2+ week shutdowns for programs left and right.
January 24th, 2021 at 8:39 AM ^
Where did you get that masks are ineffective against the variant?
January 24th, 2021 at 1:45 PM ^
Health experts are now recommending to wear KN95s and N95s when going to places like grocery stores due to how contagious the new strain is
January 25th, 2021 at 7:36 PM ^
Again, where are you getting your misinformation from?
January 24th, 2021 at 9:55 AM ^
The UK and other more transmissable variants make masks/distancing even more important. There is zero reason to believe masks are any less effective. Mask efficacy is determined by things like particle/droplet size, not spike protein mutations.
The only issue would be that some border cases where infectious particle numbers that escape infected person A's mask and make it into uninfected person B's nose/mouth/eyes could be a little lower and still cause an infection.
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