More Good News Following the Latest Round of COVID-19 Testing at BC
Andy Backstrom
Staff Writer
The University of Alabama is the latest school to make headlines because of a COVID-19 spike. Six days after classes started, the university’s campuses already have 566 positive cases and a 1.2% positivity rate, according to CNN. The news in Tuscaloosa doesn’t bode well for Alabama football, one of the most storied college football programs in the country.
While universities like Alabama, Missouri, and Iowa State are struggling to contain the coronavirus—and others, such as UNC, N.C. State, (both for the rest of the fall) and Notre Dame (temporarily), have already gone online—Boston College continues to steer clear from an outbreak.
BC students who have been moving into campus this week have been tested upon arrival. As of Monday, 8,395 BC community tests had been given, with only three positive cases. Just one of those was an undergraduate student. That gives the university community a 0.04% positivity rate and the undergraduate student body a 0.05% positivity rate.
Of course, it’s still very early for BC. Only 1,876 undergraduates have been tested, and classes don’t start until Aug. 31. But the initial results are encouraging, and the university has to hope that its COVID-19 protocol can be just as effective as its football team’s operational plan.
The program reported on Tuesday that there were zero positive cases in its most recent wave of testing. Since student-athletes, coaches, and staff members returned to campus on June 22, BC football has administered 1,235 COVID-19 tests.
Just one person—an undisclosed player who soon recovered and rejoined team activities—came back positive. That test was taken in late June and reported in early July.
“We keep telling the guys to control what you can control, and right now that’s trying to do their best every single day,” first-year head coach Jeff Hafley said after Tuesday’s practice, per BC Athletics. “We have great kids. I want to give them credit for being able to do all this. We have great protocols, and I want to give credit to our doctors. Without them, we wouldn’t have a chance, between the players and the protocol.”
A handful of ACC programs, including Syracuse, UNC, Notre Dame, and N.C. State, have paused training camp at one point or another this summer because of COVID-19 concerns and/or coronavirus clusters on campus. Pulling off athletic activities has proven all the more difficult across the country with thousands of students on campus.
UNC, for instance, saw its COVID-19 test positivity rate grow from 2.8% to 13.6%, just one week into the semester, according to The Daily Tar Heel, which also reported that two of the six COVID-19 clusters at UNC were traced back to off-campus fraternity houses. UNC football resumed practice on Monday, but all other students living in university residence halls were asked to cancel their housing contracts by Aug. 25 and move back home by Aug. 30, according to The Daily Tar Heel.
Off-campus gatherings were largely responsible for Notre Dame’s outbreak, as reported by The New York Times. The Irish’s football program paused training camp and underwent two rounds of COVID-19 testing after the university went remote until at least Sept. 2. Five student-athletes tested positive, and six others were quarantined because of contact tracing.
While BC doesn’t have Greek Life, it does have off-campus housing. Boston.com published a story last week about how, according to City Councilor Liz Breadon, BC is hiring a Boston police detail to break up off-campus parties on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights.
BC’s football program has been taking its own precautions for the past two months, giving daily temperature checks, rotating small groups of players into the locker room and meeting areas, and wearing masks as well as “Splash Shield” helmet attachments to protect players, coaches, and staff members from the propulsion of respiratory droplets.
The Big Ten and Pac-12 canceled fall sports on Aug. 11, and other conferences have followed since, yet ACC football is still scheduled to kick off its season on Sept. 10.
BC, notably, hasn’t missed a single training camp practice because of the pandemic.
“It’s a blessing,” defensive end Marcus Valdez said. “I look at it as, I get another day to practice and other people are at home. I know a lot of guys that I went to school with, they’re back in [New] Jersey at their houses not playing football this season. This is a blessing.”
Andy Backstrom
Staff Writer
The University of Alabama is the latest school to make headlines because of a COVID-19 spike. Six days after classes started, the university’s campuses already have 566 positive cases and a 1.2% positivity rate, according to CNN. The news in Tuscaloosa doesn’t bode well for Alabama football, one of the most storied college football programs in the country.
While universities like Alabama, Missouri, and Iowa State are struggling to contain the coronavirus—and others, such as UNC, N.C. State, (both for the rest of the fall) and Notre Dame (temporarily), have already gone online—Boston College continues to steer clear from an outbreak.
BC students who have been moving into campus this week have been tested upon arrival. As of Monday, 8,395 BC community tests had been given, with only three positive cases. Just one of those was an undergraduate student. That gives the university community a 0.04% positivity rate and the undergraduate student body a 0.05% positivity rate.
Of course, it’s still very early for BC. Only 1,876 undergraduates have been tested, and classes don’t start until Aug. 31. But the initial results are encouraging, and the university has to hope that its COVID-19 protocol can be just as effective as its football team’s operational plan.
The program reported on Tuesday that there were zero positive cases in its most recent wave of testing. Since student-athletes, coaches, and staff members returned to campus on June 22, BC football has administered 1,235 COVID-19 tests.
Just one person—an undisclosed player who soon recovered and rejoined team activities—came back positive. That test was taken in late June and reported in early July.
“We keep telling the guys to control what you can control, and right now that’s trying to do their best every single day,” first-year head coach Jeff Hafley said after Tuesday’s practice, per BC Athletics. “We have great kids. I want to give them credit for being able to do all this. We have great protocols, and I want to give credit to our doctors. Without them, we wouldn’t have a chance, between the players and the protocol.”
A handful of ACC programs, including Syracuse, UNC, Notre Dame, and N.C. State, have paused training camp at one point or another this summer because of COVID-19 concerns and/or coronavirus clusters on campus. Pulling off athletic activities has proven all the more difficult across the country with thousands of students on campus.
UNC, for instance, saw its COVID-19 test positivity rate grow from 2.8% to 13.6%, just one week into the semester, according to The Daily Tar Heel, which also reported that two of the six COVID-19 clusters at UNC were traced back to off-campus fraternity houses. UNC football resumed practice on Monday, but all other students living in university residence halls were asked to cancel their housing contracts by Aug. 25 and move back home by Aug. 30, according to The Daily Tar Heel.
Off-campus gatherings were largely responsible for Notre Dame’s outbreak, as reported by The New York Times. The Irish’s football program paused training camp and underwent two rounds of COVID-19 testing after the university went remote until at least Sept. 2. Five student-athletes tested positive, and six others were quarantined because of contact tracing.
While BC doesn’t have Greek Life, it does have off-campus housing. Boston.com published a story last week about how, according to City Councilor Liz Breadon, BC is hiring a Boston police detail to break up off-campus parties on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights.
BC’s football program has been taking its own precautions for the past two months, giving daily temperature checks, rotating small groups of players into the locker room and meeting areas, and wearing masks as well as “Splash Shield” helmet attachments to protect players, coaches, and staff members from the propulsion of respiratory droplets.
The Big Ten and Pac-12 canceled fall sports on Aug. 11, and other conferences have followed since, yet ACC football is still scheduled to kick off its season on Sept. 10.
BC, notably, hasn’t missed a single training camp practice because of the pandemic.
“It’s a blessing,” defensive end Marcus Valdez said. “I look at it as, I get another day to practice and other people are at home. I know a lot of guys that I went to school with, they’re back in [New] Jersey at their houses not playing football this season. This is a blessing.”
