Before the season began, the ACC’s chief medical adviser believed the conference’s COVID-19 plan for football and all sports had merit. But Cameron Wolfe — an associate professor of medicine at Duke, an infectious disease specialist and the chair of the conference’s medical advisory group — didn’t know for sure that it would work.
In fact, he said, he took peace of mind from the conference’s acknowledgement that just because the season would start didn’t necessarily mean that all the games would be played. For instance, no one knew how the pandemic would evolve over the course of the season.
“But, I’d be kidding to say I was confident we could get all the season through,” Wolfe told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The ACC completed its 11th week Saturday, with four to go. There are difficult weeks ahead, as weather grows colder and national health numbers are worsening. But, Wolfe said, the season has played out about how he thought.
“I think about on par, to be fair,” Wolfe said. “Which was good. I was quoted as being hopeful that we could do this safely. I wasn’t 100% certain that it would play out that way, yet I think it has.”
Wolfe said that, in 69 games played by conference teams (55 in league play), there hasn’t been evidence to support a single instance of on-field transmission, which he also said held true for the SEC and Big 12. It points to the effectiveness of mitigation efforts to limit spread within teams and then also to ensure only healthy players make it onto the field.
“We’ve proven, well beyond the ACC, but in football and sports in general, the field of play is not an issue for COVID, if done carefully,” he said.
Beyond that, there have been very few serious complications for athletes in any sport. Also, as concerns were raised about the risks of myocarditis among athletes infected by COVID-19, the league has been cautious. But, Wolfe said, the advisory group has found that the rates for developing myocarditis after a COVID-19 infection do not appear to be any higher than they would be following many other respiratory viruses.
“You want to find out the full extent of disease the virus can cause,” Wolfe said. “But, early on, some of our data was not nearly as concerning as a couple of other schools elsewhere in the country (had found). In fact, we thought probably that this was the type of problem that might not have been any different in terms of frequency to the general community, and so with the help of cardiologists, we put in place extra layers of data collection and testing to be careful. And I think that’s largely borne out to be true.”
Wolfe said that, when there have been breaches, they have occurred when players, coaches or staff have let their guard down, and mostly not in football-related situations. In those instances, people are more alert to the risk and take proper precaution. He has found the same in his own medical profession. Doctors and nurses became infected when actually treating patients with COVID-19, but more often when getting together for a meal or taking a break together.
“Or, on a college campus, it’s students going back to their dormitory, sitting around on a couch, watching a movie together and dropping their guard,” Wolfe said. “It’s not been training fields, gyms, running tracks, football fields, as best we can tell.”
But, largely, teams have stayed safe. He recalled the elation he felt after the first weekend of games were played safely, indication that the processes put in place by the league (with the help of the advisory group) could work.
“And to see them sort of continue to work all the way along has been gratifying, to be honest,” Wolfe said.
Of the league’s 15 teams, 13 have had games postponed or canceled because of COVID-related reasons. Wolfe said he was pleased with how the league’s protocol for postponing or canceling games has been executed.
“You’ve seen that a few times within the ACC and certainly also with our colleagues in the (power conferences) where we just had to say, ‘Look, one or more of the medical team members on the campuses are not comfortable with the results of our testing, so we’re going to put a pause in the interest of player safety,’” Wolfe said. “And I think adding in some flexibility to be able to do that upfront was something we wanted to do. We never wanted to play a game where we felt nervous.”
Wolfe’s comments carry greater resonance given the circumstances of the Clemson-Florida State game that was not played Saturday after the Tigers had a player who had been symptomatic (but tested negative) during the week and traveled to the game, only to learn his Friday test turn out positive after the team had arrived in Tallahassee, Fla.
The game was called off hours before kickoff because, the ACC said in a statement, “both teams’ medical personnel were unable to mutually agree on moving forward with the game.” The decision created controversy, as Clemson coach Dabo Swinney alleged that “COVID was just an excuse (for FSU) to cancel the game.”
That the season has reached this point, Wolfe said, is a credit to the schools — the campus communities as a whole and the teams and athletes specifically. Wolfe singled out the conference’s athletes for being flexible, trusting and determined to carry out protocols in the face of questions that they would not have the discipline to avoid putting themselves and their teams at risk by going to parties and bars and otherwise engaging in campus life.
“They have proven many who doubted them wrong, and better yet, demonstrated to a wider community how mitigation can work,” he wrote in an email following the interview. “It’s been wonderful and humbling to watch!”
He has, however, been dismayed by the continued nationwide failure to slow down the community spread of the coronavirus.
“It’s left us in a situation where, frankly, I think many of us in July thought, Boy, if we can just get through the next couple of months, maybe we can nationally bring this under control, and a lot of the extra efforts that are required to get these sports played safely, and to have kids on a college campus in general would fade away a little bit,” Wolfe said. “And yet, clearly, that has not occurred.”
More bluntly: “We’re in a worse place disease transmission-wise than we were in August before our first games were kicking off.”
In that light, Wolfe asked fans to have patience to return to pre-COVID-19 behaviors. He encouraged fans to not use games as an excuse to congregate in large groups. Particularly, he added, for fans of teams that will allow fans for basketball, which begins its regular season Wednesday, he called on fans to adhere to guidance on social distancing and masking.
“It’s just going to be different,” he wrote. “It has to be, if we’re all going to be safe.”
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