Team cancels workouts as Fayette reports more COVID-19 cases among high school athletes

The Lafayette Boys Soccer Team has canceled conditioning for one week after a player tested positive for COVID-19, Lafayette Athletic Director Littleton Ward told families in a message Thursday.

The athlete is recuperating at home, he said.

Also Thursday, district spokeswoman Lisa Deffendall said a student who had participated in football conditioning at Paul Laurence Dunbar High school tested positive for COVID-19.

With the two cases announced Thursday, at least eight student athletes and one adult reported that they have tested positive for COVID-19 since Fayette County Public Schools resumed on-campus conditioning June 29, Deffendall said.

Ward said in the Lafayette case, staff collaborating with district officials, worked with boys’ soccer Coach Chris Grimm to conduct contact tracing and identify players and coaches who had direct contact with the athlete during conditioning.

The coaches who worked with the student will also quarantine with the other students they have been around.

At Lafayette, seven student athletes and three coaches were asked to quarantine, Deffendall said. At Paul Laurence Dunbar, two student athletes and three coaches will be asked to quarantine, Deffendall said.

The teams previously affected included volleyball and girls’ soccer at Lafayette and football and cheerleading at Frederick Douglass, cheerleading at Bryan Station High, and boy’s soccer at Paul Laurence Dunbar, district officials said. Athletes at other high schools around Kentucky have also tested positive since workouts started.

Having specific guidelines and clear safety expectations that include limiting the number of students who participate at the same time is a huge advantage in curtailing any possible spread, Ward said.

Conditioning for the soccer team will resume on Thursday August 6. The campus will be deep cleaned.

On Friday, the Lafayette boys’ golf team is the host of one of the first high school events since the onset of the pandemic. Golf is the only high school sport that’s been allowed to play on its normal calendar because the sport is among the “low touch” activities, like softball and baseball, that have been allowed to compete since June 29 under Gov. Andy Beshear’s guidelines. There are six season opening tournaments across the state today and dozens more scheduled this weekend.

Student athletes are being asked to wear a mask to and from practices, social distance before, during and after conditioning, and wash their hands frequently.

In each positive case, school and district staff strictly followed the Fayette County Return to Athletics Guidelines, which outlines the response to a positive case: contact tracing, notification, quarantine requirements as appropriate, and deep cleaning.

The district’s guidelines mandate that teams be divided into small groups, or “pods” of 10 or fewer so that if a student tests positive, they can place the pod on quarantine rather than the entire team.

Deffendall said since Fayette County Public Schools resumed on-campus conditioning on June 29, the district counts reflect roughly 200 student athletes per day participating in workouts at each of the district’s six high schools. The district’s 12 middle schools have had between 10 and 60 athletes per day.

“There is no indication that anyone has contracted COVID-19 because of participation in athletics on our campuses,” Deffendall said.

The Kentucky High School Athletic Association on Tuesday approved a plan to begin official fall practice on August 24 in Cross Country, Field Hockey, Soccer, Volleyball, and Football, with the first date of competition set for September 11 for Football and September 7 for the remaining fall sports.

Each Kentucky school district is deciding whether it will start the academic year with students learning in person or from home as the virus surges. Fayette students will learn from home for at least six weeks beginning Aug. 26.

This story was originally published July 31, 2020 at 1:18 PM.