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91 UO ATHLETES HAVE TESTED POSITIVE FOR COVID-19 SINCE JULY From mid-July to early March, swaths of student-athletes tested positive for COVID-19 while the university blanketed the info with a cloud of ambiguity. BY SHANE HOFFMANN • TWITTER @SHANE_HOFFMANN Note: This story originally appeared in The Oregonian/OregonLive on May 2. Oregon Ducks football coach Mario Cristobal and his staff often err on the side of ambiguity when handling injuries within the program, keeping exact diagnoses close to the vest. Many programs across the country do the same. But this past season brought an added wrinkle across the UO athletic department: the suppression of information surrounding COVID-19 cases among student-athletes. As college football forged on last fall despite the pandemic, swaths of athletes tested positive for COVID-19 around the country. In the Pac-12, programs had to opt out of games on a near-weekly basis due to outbreaks. Most schools in the conference announced when players had tested positive or would miss time due to illness. Oregon, however, chose not to report positive cases among athletes to the public. The only time the athletic department announced a positive case was when five football players tested positive on Oct. 24, results that were deemed false positives days later. Data obtained by The Oregonian/ OregonLive through a public records request show 91 out of the university’s 520 student-athletes tested positive for COVID-19 between July 17, 2020, and March 2 of this year. According to the university’s latest enrollment numbers, 17.5% of student-athletes have tested positive, compared with 8% of students overall, though student-athletes are required to get tested frequently, while other students are not. Over the course of that same window, Oregon State recorded 66 positive tests among studentathletes. Since UCLA began testing on June 22, it has recorded 93 positive tests. Elsewhere in the conference, Washington State had recorded well over 100 by mid-November and Washington had more than 80 through the month of December. The records from UO did not specify the athletes’ sport or team but do indicate spikes in cases that corresponded with the start of the football season, as well as the men’s and women’s basketball teams’ pauses in activity in January and February. PA G E 1 0
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Ducks head coach Mario Cristobal on the sideline during a timeout. Oregon Ducks Football takes on the Colorado Buffaloes at Autzen Stadium in Eugene, Ore. on Oct. 11, 2019. (DL Young/Emerald)
Although the Pac-12's football aggregate data about the toll of the season didn’t commence until virus, especially at a time like this when November, Gov. Kate Brown cleared we are by no means out of the woods.” both Oregon and Oregon State to Singh added: “I do think there is begin practicing on Sept. 17. In the a degree of short-sightedness when following 13 days, 15 student-athletes these laws are overapplied, because it at UO tested positive for COVID-19. is to everybody’s detriment. The public Forty-two of the athletes’ reported and the news media have a right to positives came between July 17 and see the data, understand the trends, Jan. 2, when the UO football season understand the risks involved with ended, while 49 occurred in the next physically heading back to school.” two months, from Jan. 3 to March 2. UO does keep a regularly updated Similarly, a majority of UO’s overall database of all student cases at the student cases came in January and the university. months following. It isn’t completely clear why UO has When the men’s and women’s now released COVID numbers among basketball programs paused all team its athletes after previously refusing activities multiple times in January, to do so. UO spokeswoman Kay Jarvis it was labeled “due to COVID-19 told The Oregonian/OregonLive that protocols.” The men’s when testing first began program experienced last summer, there “JANUARY SAW THE a pause of all team were so few students activities on Jan. 12 MOST POSITIVE CASES being tested, and so for 10 days and then few positive results, AMONG UO ATHLETES, that the university was paused again on Jan. 26 — the same day that able to release data WITH 31, FOLLOWED BY not eight of the positive because of FERPA. tests were recorded. 19 IN FEBRUARY, 16 IN Jarvis wrote that some Three more were requests “were made SEPTEMBER AND 11 IN before records were reported over the next three days. The available.” OCTOBER.” women’s program was When asked in early paused on Jan 29. Six December if there had cases were reported between Jan. 29 been any cases within the football and Feb. 5. program, UO athletic department January saw the most positive cases spokesman Jimmy Stanton did not among UO athletes, with 31, followed answer, saying via email that all data is by 19 in February, 16 in September and reported to Lane County Public Health 11 in October. and the UO campus in the aggregate This is the first time the university has only and was not available to the reported this data, previously declining public. He added, “data on individual media requests while citing privacy laws student-athlete testing results is such as HIPAA. The Health Insurance protected personal health information Portability and Accountability Act, and and not released.” FERPA, the Family Educational Rights A New York Times investigation and Privacy Act. published Dec. 11 reported at least FERPA and HIPAA do prohibit 6,629 coronavirus cases in athletic schools from disclosing information departments around the country. Nine that could potentially harm or identify Pac-12 schools provided complete data, individuals, but do not prevent the and two — Colorado and Arizona State university from disclosing aggregate — contributed “limited” data. Oregon numbers to the public. was the only school in the conference “I can say confidently that denying to provide no data. Oregon was among access to such data doesn’t serve 19 schools of the 130 surveyed that did public interest,” said attorney Gunita not provide the information. Singh, legal fellow with the Reporters A New York Times spokeswoman told Committee for Freedom of the Press. The Oregonian/OregonLive via email “FERPA and HIPAA should absolutely that UO denied requests for data and not be used to withhold de-identified, that the newspaper subsequently filed
an open records request. The university responded by saying it did not have records about cases in the athletic department, and that any records it did have would be exempt due to privacy. Many of the university’s Pac-12 peers have made complete logs of aggregate testing numbers among athletic departments available to the public. Several schools, including UCLA, provide the number of studentathletes tested, along with the number of active positive cases each week. Asked why UO differed in its approach, Jarvis wrote: “We respect the privacy of our students, including our student-athletes, and do not believe that the privacy of athletes’ health status is any less worthy of protection than that of any other students or employees on our campus.” UO did not provide the number of total tests administered to studentathletes or the number of negative results, saying via email that it does not possess those records. “It’s important that people have the truth, that they know the real data so that they can make decisions about how to live their life,” said Chris Sinclair, the president of the UO faculty union and former president of the faculty senate. The UO public records office told The Oregonian/OregonLive that all student-athletes were tested upon returning to campus for the first time. After that, the frequency of testing among sports is determined through the sport’s risk of transmission — based on the NCAA definition of high, medium or low risk — and whether a sport is in season. During football season, the program provided antigen testing six days a week and a weekly polymerase chain reaction test — a method that rapidly creates millions of copies of a specific DNA sample. Football out of season has weekly PCR testing. Low-risk programs — like beach volleyball, golf and tennis — test only if athletes develop symptoms and 48 hours prior to traveling to a competition, according to the UO public records office. Medium-risk sports like softball and baseball have weekly PCR testing while in season and every other week out of season.
