Next Showdown: Vaccinated Vs. Unvaccinated
The latest public health policy draws clear line between rights of the dosed and undosed
(Photo Credit: Times Herald)
Good morning and thanks for spending a portion of your day with The Kerr Report.
There’s an old motto in public relations that dates probably as far back as Prohibition.
Dump bad news on Friday.
The end of last week, June 11, saw good news (Phase 5 kickoff) tempered with an ever- approaching reality that public policymakers have no plans to fully open schools and sports in August.
Before I examine that development, a quick history lesson.
It’s been almost a year since we were first made aware that youth sports in Illinois would come under control of Gov. Pritzker and the Illinois Department of Public Health. After a few teenagers got tummy aches at a Lake Zurich sports camp, Pritzker saw an opportunity to steamroll the Illinois High School Association, whom meekly crumbled, and in a power grab, he became youth sports czar.
J.B.’s way of governing non-professional and collegiate athletic activities was to create a one-sheet “All Sports Guidance” document with rules and procedures that contained as much nuance as an box of marbles rolling inside an empty Campbell’s soup can. Beginning in July of 2020, all youth sports activities were at the mercy of this document that would be “updated as new information became available.”
New information was available every day over the ensuing months but the document stayed relatively stagnant. When Pritzker and his IDPH squires did make adjustments, they did so seemingly in the backseat of a limousine on the way to a luncheon, rarely communicating with the IHSA or other state or regional athletic administrative leaders.
Over a 48-hour span in April, when a significant adjustment to the document was made about mask wearing, Pritzker/IDPH pulled off a bait and switch, erasing the part that removed a mask wearing mandate for certain sports.
Of course, no notice was given, leaving organizers, coaches and players scrambling as to what to interpret.
So we’ve established a 12-month pattern—Pritzker doesn’t give a rip about youth athletics in Illinois, seeing it as a political chip he can cash when needed, an attitude that permeates from Springfield to the alphabet soup agencies he controls—IDPH/ISBE/IHSA.
Now on to what happened last Friday.
The most recent sports guidance document, last altered in April, was changed once again. The fact it happened on Phase 5 Day is no coincidence.
Confusing before, with levels and phases and risk-labeling, the document as currently constructed is fairly straight forward.
Highlights worth noting:
-removal of sports risk-labeling. Before, football/basketball/baseball/etc were categorized based on level of risk as defined by the IDPH, i.e. low/moderate/high. These classifications, long recommended as baseless by the National High School Federation, no longer exist.
-different rules for outdoor and indoor sports.
-a clear distinction between “fully vaccinated individuals” and “individuals not fully vaccinated.”
A few excerpts from the document:
Individuals who are fully vaccinated against the virus that causes COVID-19 may resume sports-related activities without wearing masks or maintaining physical distance for all sports, except where required by laws, rules, or regulations, including local business and workplace guidance. Schools and other sports organizers are permitted to require face coverings and physical distancing for all individuals, including those who are fully vaccinated, as they deem appropriate.
Individuals who are not fully vaccinated should continue to wear a mask during sports-related activities for sports played indoors, except when wearing a mask is against the recommendation of an individual’s health care provider or poses an injury risk as described by the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Individuals who are not fully vaccinated may resume sports-related activities without wearing masks for any sport played outdoors, except where required by laws, rules, and regulations, including local business and workplace guidance. While masks may be removed during training, competition, and other active exercise according to the provisions above, it is important that, whenever possible, individuals who are not fully vaccinated continue to wear a mask during contacts with other unvaccinated individuals that do not occur during gameplay, such as on the sideline or bench, in the locker room, during team meetings, in the weight room, on the team bus or carpooling, or during meals, especially when indoors
IDPH added this neat graphic to more clearly show where the line is drawn between “Fully Vaccinated” and “Not Fully Vaccinated”:
This adjustment—making a distinct delineation between allowable behavior for those vaccinated and those not vaccinated—aligns with recent language coming from public health institutions.
But what it also does is stigmatize young people based on vaccination status. No longer risk-labeling sports, public health officials are now instead, risk-labeling children.
And that’s shameful.
I attended a boys lacrosse sectional final game Friday, only a few hours after the new guidance came out, which also removed capacity restrictions.
Based on the new protocols, knowledge of vaccination status for lacrosse, an outdoor sport, is not as relevant as it would be for an indoor sport like volleyball. The hosting school, Lake Forest, did not attempt to police contact between vaccinated and non-vaccinated individuals (thank goodness.) Hundreds of people attended, and with the exception of a few virtue signaling administrators, nary a mask in sight. Since the full return of sports this past winter, the overwhelming majority of Chicagoland schools have insisted in following IDPH guidance by the book when hosting events. Many have gone overboard on the side of senseless caution.
The latest policy changes allow room for schools to play the masking/vax passport check-in game, especially with indoor events. Will they have the stomach to do it?
At Friday’s events they did not.
I’ve made this point before in this space—hope is not a strategy. To just believe that education leaders will take an “open” approach to athletic events this fall is fool’s gold.
When one reads this passage from the final paragraph of the sports document, it provides an out clause for administrators desirous for a “closed” environment around campus this fall:
Because most youth participants have not yet had the time to become fully vaccinated, IDPH also continues to recommend regular weekly COVID-19 screening testing for youth participants who are not fully vaccinated and playing sports that involve sustained close contacts with other participants who are not fully vaccinated (e.g., basketball, boxing, football, hockey, contact lacrosse, martial arts, rugby, wrestling). When possible, participants should receive a negative test for COVID-19 as close as possible to competition and no longer than 72 hours before play if receiving a molecular test (e.g., SHIELD Illinois) or 24 hours if receiving an antigen test (e.g., BinaxNOW).
My favorite part is the first sentence: “Because most youth participants have not yet had the time to become fully vaccinated…”
Talk about passive/aggressive language and an assumptive truth. It’s hogwash.
Actually, Dr. Ezike, youth participants have had plenty of time to become fully vaccinated. For those under the age of 18, if they have not taken the vaccine, it is by choice not to get dosed based on reasonable concerns or just general indifference.
First there’s the data—the last three weeks of CDC data record no deaths in the 0-17 age group. Through May, for those under the age of 20, the survival rate is 99.992%. Kids and young adults are virtually risk-free of Covid.
Next the coercion crumbs—the Shield testing campaign. Vaccinate or quarantine. School campuses transforming into health care facilities. Distrust of advice coming from state government officials and of Big Pharma, neither of whom have a track record of being on the up-and-up.
Read this tag line in the updated guidance:
Schools and other sports organizers are permitted to require face coverings and physical distancing for all individuals, including those who are fully vaccinated, as they deem appropriate
Where’s the incentive? My kid could still be asked to mask up even if he/she is vaccinated when “they deem appropriate?”
Good grief.
And when prominent public figures speak out and give rational explanations for why they are not getting vaccinated, it gives parents and kids pause.
One doesn’t have to be an anti-vaxxer to weight the pros and cons of COVID-19’s vaccine. Again, kids have virtually zero risk. It becomes a cost/benefit analysis and for some, that analysis leads to the conclusion, “no, I’m not comfortable.”
So stop with the disingenuous “haven’t had time to become fully vaccinated” nonsense. They’ve made a choice for themselves or their child. That doesn’t mean they won’t change their minds.
Friday’s adjustment makes it abundantly clear—the state incentivizes those who do get vaccinated and penalizes those who do not.
In the coming weeks and months, a potential showdown is looming.
For story ideas, article comments/feedback, media inquiries and more, drop note to jon@jonjkerr.com, or @jonjkerr on Twitter.