This thread addresses my main job: youth basketball coach. I’m going to address youth sports in general, though, with an eye to school-based education:

@CanBball @OBABBall @USPORTSca

1/ Youth sports—whether houseleague or competitive—is of value to most kids. Effort should be made to be inclusive as possible to account for physical, developmental, or psychological barriers. I’ve coached kids with all of these, and they are possible.

2/ Sports and competition will be a likely victim of COVID—just think to what extent pro sports has gone to minimize transmission, and its challenges. We will see the same unless prevalence rates remain low.

3/ The CDC put out a decent document to address risk assessment and risk mitigation. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/schools-childcare/youth-sports.html. The document reflects its age (May 29), probably overemphasizing touch as a means of transmission.

Communicable diseases are best spread amongst crowded indoor groups from diverse backgrounds: it just increases the probability that at least 1 person enters “the bubble” infected. So communities with low disease rates can probably safely run a houseleague, but “rep” or club ...

whereby a team from 1 community plays against a team from another 1—this is a setup for superspreader events. Similarly, teams (usually ones that recruit heavily outside local community) w/ a wide catchment area will be more at risk, as they assume the risk of multip communities

Further, consider trying to schedule games our tournaments in advance become problematic, as we anticipate different regions being in different “stages” in the fall and winter. One might think limiting competition to a small geographic area makes sense but ...

we have already seen in Toronto that prevalence can vary widely within a few km: https://twitter.com/aspphysician/status/1281785340781617152

Additionally, I know that some coaches/teams are having scrimmages already—for basketball, at present, this is a) not allowed but b) probably a pretty low risk. But it won’t be low risk for long and, more importantly, we don’t have surveillance systems in place to know when.

Indoor competitive basketball will remain the highest risk sport vis a vis COVID: it has close prolonged contact, players are usually face-to-face, there is a shared object, and there is no kind of protective equipment. I cannot foresee a long-term pre-herd immunity plan unless:

a) disease prevalence remains very low (which is most of Canada at present but very little of US) AND
b) players can be screened weekly to prevent asymptomatic contagious players from competing.
In meantime, intrasquad scrimmaging will likely be the greatest hope for club teams

As for houseleague: this is just as much a challenge, because they tend to be run by untrained volunteers/coaches with players who have not been socialized to a disciplined practice format. It’s POSSIBLE, but not easy.

@OBABBall @CanBball needs to take a serious look at all of this NOW.
As for parents: if teams/coaches are taking “risks” with your kids now...do you really want your kid playing for ‘em? What are YOUR priorities? (BTW: there WONT be teams travelling to this year b/c insurance)