Murphy cancels all workouts amid COVID-19 cases
Murphy – Out of an “abundance of caution,” Murphy High School announced Sunday evening that all school-sponsored athletics workouts for the next two weeks have been canceled after a handful of COVID-19 tests returned positive among the high school’s student and adult population last week.
“As a district we’ve decided to take a cautionary approach,” Cherokee County Schools Superintendent Jeana Conley said Monday about Murphy’s cancelation. “Last week, we had several instances where we had positive tests within our student population, as well as in our adult population, and had others that we weren’t sure if they were positive but had been directed by the health department to be tested.”
Conley said that the number of positive cases found in Murphy’s population was undetermined, as contact tracing was still being done by the Cherokee County Health Department.
However, because of the number of individuals that were involved in the tracing, it was decided that canceling Murphy’s workouts for the week was the best move.
“I think that is still undetermined,” Conley said when asked for the confirmed number of positive cases. “Because of the number involved in the contact tracing, we decided that it was best to go ahead and cancel practice for the next five days.”
The week following Murphy’s cancelation from Aug. 17-21 had already been deemed a “dead period” by the N.C. High School Athletics Association, meaning that the school will not have any sanctioned workouts for the next two weeks.
“To prevent any possible formation of a cluster, we made the decision, since next week is a dead period anyway,” Conley said of the decision to cancel workouts. “We’re hoping to, in a sense, ‘flatten our own curve,’ and not have further potential exposure with anyone who might have tested positive.”
Conley also said the cause of the spread has not been determined, meaning it could be possible that transmission of the virus had happened at workouts.
“We don’t know, it could have happened at practice,” Conley said. “But we do know now that outside of practices these kids are still exposed to each other and the contact tracing crossed several teams.”
The NCHSAA’s current “Phase Two” guidance lists the following criteria for athletes or coaches who have tested positive for COVID-19 to return to workouts:
- No fever for 72 hours without fever-reducing medications, since recovery
- Resolution of respiratory symptoms
- At least 10 days have passed since symptoms first appeared
- A note of clearance from a licensed medical provider.