High school sports won't resume before Jan. 25, state says

By Doug Spoon, Editor

In its first updated guidelines since August regarding youth sports, the California Department of Public Health today reported that the earliest high school sports could begin is Jan. 25.

The CIF State Office announced on Dec. 1 that high school athletes must stop conditioning workouts because of increasing COVID-19 numbers. At that time, however, there had been no updated word from the state health office regarding guidelines for youth sports and outdoor adult recreational sports.

Today’s health department guidelines state that individual counties’ colored tiers will be used as a guideline for when high school sports seasons can begin. Riverside County – and most of the state – is in the purple tier, signifying the highest level of COVID-19 case rates. The return to competition date will be re-evaluated Jan. 4, according to the news release.

Riverside County health officials announced today that 121 additional patients have been hospitalized with COVID-19 since Friday, including 14 more patients in ICU units. The county’s ICU bed availability was listed at 0 percent, although other beds are being prepared as ICU beds to handle the crisis.

Football – the highest profile high school sport – was tentatively scheduled to begin its season last weekend in the CIF Southern Section. The Dec. 1 shutdown of workouts pushed the timeline back. Today, football was listed as one of the highest contact sports, which would not be allowed to begin play until Riverside County moves down to the orange tier. At this point, that would require a huge number of reductions in COVID-19 cases.

Sports that could be considered for a return while a county remains in the purple tier include low-contact sports such as cross country, tennis and track and field. There is no timetable even for their return, other than the tehtative Jan. 25 date.

The chart released today, indicting what color tier each sport would need to be in in order to be allowed to begin competition, can be found at this link.