How Southern Miss is handling coronavirus testing for its athletes
Southern Miss athletes began to return to campus on Monday for voluntary workouts, and there have been no cases reported yet of COVID-19 among those who have reported as of Thursday, according to an athletic department spokesperson.
With colleges taking varying approaches to testing their athletes, USM is in the group that is testing only those who show symptoms.
“We’re doing daily symptomatic testing as well as daily temperature checks.” said Jack Duggan, USM’s assistant athletic director for media relations.
A report by Sports Illustrated’s Ross Dellenger says that Nebraska and Florida are testing athletes as soon as they arrive on campus with a polymer chain reaction test — the most reliable and common method.
Missouri and Arkansas are doing the same thing as Southern Miss, only conducting tests on athletes who show symptoms. Each of LSU’s athletes are receiving antibody tests, which only determines if someone has had the novel coronavirus previously.
USM has taken steps to assure athletes maintain social distancing guidelines, including limiting how many athletes can use the weight room at the same time.
“We’re going to go groups, 10-15. Fifteen would be the max,” USM athletic director Jeremy McClain said last week. “We’ll be able to spread them out and have plenty of social distancing. We’ll do a thorough cleaning between each group. We’ll clean the equipment and they’ll do conditioning outside. There will be plenty of space between them when they’re doing conditioning. We want our student-athletes to be as safe as possible.”
McClain expects the vast majority of athletes to report to campus by the middle of June. More than half of USM’s football players are currently taking part in voluntary workouts.
Arkansas State reported on Thursday that it has had seven athletes test positive for the virus. At Marshall, three have tested positive.
Forrest County, where the Hattiesburg campus is located, was home to the first reported case of COVID-19 in Mississippi on March 11. There have been 595 reported COVID-19 cases and 39 deaths in the county.
Neighboring Jones County has recently been the site of one of the state’s biggest outbreaks with 701 reported cases and 33 deaths.
This story was originally published June 4, 2020 at 2:38 PM.
