Collectively, the cluster raises the school’s Covid-19 alert status from green to yellow, which represents “low risk,” indicating “low or moderate risk of virus transmission.
On Tuesday, the university community reported that six people from the national team athletic team tested positive for the virus. In the past two days, 12 additional benign cases were found, the Ivy League school confirmed to CNN.
“All other members of the men’s ice hockey team in the New Haven area and the athletics staff who worked directly with them were instructed to quarantine and participate in a college testing program, whether they had it or not. This was confirmed by intimate contact from infected team members,” said Thursday In an evening letter to the Yale community, said Stephanie Spangler, Vice Dean of Health and Academic Integrity.
Spangler told students that “strict” contact tracking efforts are underway to identify other individuals who may have been in close contact with athletes, and that all varsity athletic teams and on-campus programs will cease in-person activities for a week.
The school’s hockey rink is also closed for cleaning until Monday, October 19th.
Why ice hockey rinks enable propagation
In the report, Florida Health Department officials detailed the incident last spring in which one player infected 14 other players during an indoor ice hockey match.
Ice hockey involves intense physical exertion, along with heavy breathing during matches and frequent contact between players, the researchers noted in the report.
“Ice Rink is an indoor environment where deep breathing occurs and people are close to each other, providing a suitable place for COVID-19 transmission.”
The study concluded that “close contact between indoor spaces and players during hockey matches increases the risk of infection for players and creates the possibility of a super spread event, especially due to the ongoing community COVID-19 spread.”
“Ice Rink is an indoor environment where deep breathing occurs and people are close to each other, providing a suitable place for COVID-19 transmission,” they said.
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