All University of Michigan athletics will be paused for two weeks starting Sunday, Jan. 24 in accordance with an order from the state health department according to messages obtained by The Daily and confirmed by a source close to the athletic department. The order, which halts all athletic activity including practice, is limited exclusively to U-M athletics after a recent influx of positive cases within several Michigan teams.
A source told The Daily that there were five confirmed cases of the new COVID-19 B.1.1.7 variant, with 15 more presumed positives throughout the athletic department. The novel strain was first introduced at the beginning of the semester by a U-M athlete from the United Kingdom. All members of the athletic department are expected to quarantine for 14 days.
wow from Ethan Sears just now:
NEWS: State health department to suspend University of Michigan athletics for two weeks, per source close to the athletic department and documents obtained by The Daily. Five confirmed cases of B.1.1.7. COVID-19 variant in dept, 15 more presumed positive.
— Ethan Sears (@ethan_sears) January 24, 2021
The state health department seems have unlimited and unchecked power？
Goodness gracious. It was fun while it lasted.
I wonder if there’s a game of telephone afoot and it’s only the program(s) that have tested positive for the variant rather than the entire department. As @AC1997 said many of the athletes don’t even interact
The state beginning to allow indoor dining right around the same time it shuts down a university’s athletic department would be… an odd choice.
If it is the new variant that make the officials more nervous, I won’t be surprised that they may want to implement an UK style lockdown across the state.
This effing sucks
Can someone explain this to me like I’m a toddler?
The state of Michigan has received news that five people within the athletic department (but we don’t know where specifically) have tested positive for a rare more dangerous strain of Covid? So they’re shutting the entire department down, as opposed to the positives coming from specific team(s) that would need to shut down?
Has that happened anywhere else?
Is the city locked down, the rest of the university? I don’t really understand why or how locking down independent teams that don’t have this new strain would do anything.
make no sense unless the whole university shuts down for two weeks.
From the Daily: Michigan Athletics put on 14-day pause due to surge in COVID-19 cases | The Michigan Daily
(Sorry, just saw someone beat me to this)
Yeah I am pretty confused if this is the whole story. I have to think there are some details missing
This makes absolutely no sense unless the entire schools or even the entire city and surrounding areas shut down any in person activities.
This does seem wild to lockdown the entire AD. How much interaction between teams is even happening right now with Covid? I’d imagine each team really only sees their own players. I’d think you either need to shut down the whole University or just the affected teams.
15 more presumed positive plus the 5 confirmed. That’s a lot and it’s happened very quickly. There’s no way there aren’t more in the incubation stage. I don’t want to miss games, but it doesn’t sound like a time for half measures.
Welp, the scenario discussed in the pod of who wins the B1G where Michigan is 12-1 and Iowa is 16-4 just became a lot more realistic.
@ Penn State
vs. Indiana
@ Northwestern
vs. Michigan State
4 extremely winnable games will be delayed/cancelled. Ugh.
I don’t mean this in any condescending way whatsoever so I apologize if it sounds that way, but what is a “presumed” positive test?