Throughout the Pac-12 footprint this week, there was disappointment when the conference made the decision to postpone all sports competition through the end of the year.
Dr. Stephanie Chu is on board with that decision, but also has optimism about Pac-12 sports returning to action early in 2021.
“There are so many tests and so much research going out right now on the testing that I am confident,” she said.
Chu is a team physician within University of Colorado athletics and a member of the Pac-12’s coronavirus advisory board. The Pac-12’s medical experts have kept school administrators and coaches informed about coronavirus developments and their recommendation was to not go forward with competition.
“I don’t know if any of the medical board or the advisory panel was not on board with the decision,” Chu told BuffZone.com.
One concern by experts in the Pac-12 and around the country is the unknown relationship between COVID-19 and myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle. Myocarditis can be caused by any virus and has impacted people for years. Although it’s rare, Chu said, “We’re seeing that coronavirus, for whatever reason, is causing it a little bit more frequently than just any other virus.”
Generally found in patients who are seriously ill and hospitalized, Chu said doctors are beginning to find myocarditis in asymptomatic, but COVID-positive patients.
“That has kind of changed and caused things to snowball, I would say, in the last two weeks into canceling seasons,” she said.
Chu, however, said the cardiac risks were not the main concern for the Pac-12 medical team.
“I think the overwhelming majority of the advisory panel was just looking at the infectivity and the prevalence (of the virus), as well as the testing capabilities,” Chu said. “Half the schools (in the Pac-12) are in areas where the virus is just not under control in the community.”
There is also a need for frequent testing and rapid results, which “wasn’t happening in a lot of the schools,” she said.
Pac-12 medical experts have recommended most schools test players every other day or three times per week, but that would require results within 24 hours. In some cases, it has taken 72 hours to get results.
Financially, the tests cost about $100 each. When testing all players and staff members of a football team, for example, that’s about $15,000 for each round of testing. Over the course of a full season, that could cost $600,000 or more – just for football. Add in soccer, volleyball, cross country, etc., and the cost to an athletic department is even more significant.
Cost was a bit of an issue for Pac-12 teams, but Chu said, “(The concern) was more the frequency of testing and getting the results in a timely manner to make the frequency worthwhile.”
Chu’s optimism stems from the belief that between now and January – when the Pac-12 is hoping to begin playing sports again – there will be cheaper and accurate tests with more rapid results, within six hours or less.
“I think that there is a lot of testing and a lot of new testing coming out that I’m pretty confident,” she said. “Just in the past few months all the testing that has kind of emerged, I’m confident that they’re going to come up with something.”
The latest development came Saturday, when the U.S. Food & Drug Administration issued emergency use authorization for SalivaDirect, a saliva-based lab test developed by the Yale School of Public Health and funded by the National Basketball Association. During its return to play in Orlando, the NBA has used the SalivaDirect tests along with more invasive nasal swabs.
Nathan Grubaugh, assistant professor at Yale School of Public Health, told ESPN that the test could lose some sensitivity – leading to more false-negatives – “but what we gain is speed and that it should be up to 10 times cheaper.”
While perhaps not as sensitive as other methods, Anne Wyllie, associate research scientist at Yale School of Public Health, told BuffZone that the SalivaDirect test has shown to be highly sensitive.
“This is enough to catch an individual early on in infection, perhaps before they even become infectious,” she said. “We are continuing to validate our method in partnership with the NBA.”
Wyllie said results could be returned within three hours with a cost of only about $10 per test. The group is hoping to have bigger labs, such as Quest Diagnostics, adopt the Yale test in the coming weeks.
Whether it’s the Yale test or other technology still to be developed, Chu and her colleagues are hopeful there will be accurate, rapid and cheaper testing by the end of the year.
A critical step, however, is for the general public to do its part. Dr. Carlos del Rio, executive dean of the Emory School of Medicine and also on the NCAA advisory panel, said during an Infectious Diseases Society of America webinar on Thursday that he is “disappointed in us as a country.”
“The reality is we have not done a good job controlling this pandemic,” he said. “As a result of that, we are in a place today we never imagined we would be when we started in March, April. … We should really think about sports not as how do we get it done, but we need to focus our efforts on how do we get the pandemic controlled? Support research and, in the meantime, wear your masks, watch your distance and wash your hands.”
Although he doesn’t believe the public has done well with mitigation, del Rio said the research has been exceptional.
“This epidemic is not forever,” he said. “We are going to find our way out and we’re finding our way out through research and through innovation.”
That is Chu’s hope, as well. Better mitigation efforts and development in rapid, accurate tests could bring Pac-12 sports back.
“If we get (the tests) so that we believe the results, so the specificities are high enough, then it does change the game,” she said.
“I think that there’s a lot of science and a lot of development happening.”
