Isabella Montenegro
Staff Writer
There is a major debate on whether youth indoor sports should be allowed or not since they were cancelled last year due to COVID-19. Youth indoor sports should not be allowed because of the high risk of contamination.
Although COVID-19 has followed everyone in 2021; testing positive, hospitalization, and deaths have somewhat decreased from 2020 to 2021 and from January to February of 2021. The majority of youth outdoor sports have been allowed to conduct training with safety guidelines put in place.
One major concern of allowing indoor sports to practice in-person again are athletes and administration not following safety guidelines properly. A lot of citizens find it difficult to follow simple regulations such as wearing masks properly and maintaining a minimum of six feet distance from each other. Therefore it becomes difficult to believe that administration and athletes would follow even more strict guidelines such as completing a self-screening questionnaire before every training and wiping down any equipment after one use, during their training. Thus, allowing indoor sports would be the step in the wrong direction for COVID-19 infection rates.
Another major concern of allowing indoor sports is the higher risk of contamination being indoors. A majority of outdoor sports have been allowed to return due to the reason that the training is outdoors. Being in an enclosed building allows for an even easier transmission of the virus rather than being outside with the fresh air.
Lastly, allowing indoor sports should not be allowed because the majority of indoor sports require physical contact. The first safety guideline of social distancing would not be followed if indoor sports were to be allowed. Outdoor sports such as track and tennis can be conducted six feet apart, but indoor sports such as wrestling and basketball cannot. This makes it very difficult for an athlete to get a full training in, therefore there would be no point in potentially sacrificing lives for half a training.
One may argue that the contamination of COVID-19 worldwide is decreasing and with a new vaccine for COVID-19, indoor sports should be permitted. Although COVID-19 related cases are decreasing, one should not act upon little progress by opening up everything. Many people who are eager to return to their “normal” way of life tend to see the progress as an endpoint rather than a beginning point. With a new vaccine on the table, the youth are some of the last people to have access to it. The people with underlying conditions and/or seniors are the first group to have accessibility to the vaccine.
One also may argue that if the youth are not at risk of the virus then opening up indoor sports for them should not be an issue because if they contract the virus nothing will happen. As there is some accuracy in this, the virus works as a domino effect. Suppose one child tested positive but they are asymptomatic, they are still contagious and can spread it to everyone else who is at risk.
All in all, it is not safe for youth indoor sports to be in play at the moment. There is too much risk because of the high risk of contamination, the low reliability of the following of guidelines, and the physical contact involved in indoor sports.
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