Aug 11, 2020 2 min read

Why is common sense so hard to come by when deciding upon the future of high school sports this fall and winter? I am not a fan of Governor Wolf’s blanket decisions on several issues, but there is no doubt that the decision to ban all sports until Jan. 1 would be the safest. We don’t have a vaccine. We have some treatments that have shown marginal success. Testing is laborious, oftentimes insensitive, and, citing the debacle of the Ohio’s governor’s misdiagnoses of a few days ago, of questionable reliability.

The PIAA has tossed this hot potato issue back to the school districts, so they have to make the decision themselves, and, because of all the pressures they are getting from all sides, probably wish that the PIAA had made the decision for them. There is a very simple solution to this: let’s use it.

Sports in which athletes can safely social distance can go on. Golf, cross-country, some track competitions, and tennis are healthy, open-air activities that can easily adhere to preventative measures and are actually good for the kids. Let the competitions begin!

Sports that involve colliding bodies, and shared sweat and breath should not. One positive individual can easily spread the infection to the entire squad, and then the collateral damage really begins as it spreads to older adults. The scary thing is, in the last week, cases among children have gone up 40% in states and cities that were studied. The pediatrics associations are becoming increasingly concerned. Are we more careless with our young, thinking they are immune, or is the virus mutating?

We already have made many gut-wrenching decisions that have made us unhappy, trapped. This is just one more of them. Look beyond to life after the pandemic. We all want to be there.

Sally Brown-Pawlosky

Hickory