School and youth leagues will be able to resume competitions Feb. 12, officials said at a press conference Friday.
The games will have some restrictions, such as limiting the teams to two games a week and forcing competitions to be spaced three days apart, said Julie Moore, head of the Agency of Natural Resources. Parents will not be able to attend games, and any referees or observers must follow a mask order.
“We recognize that this will come as a disappointment to parents and fans of local teams, but minimizing the number of people present is essential to appropriately managing the risk associated with indoor sports events,” Moore said.
Officials said their decision was based on contact tracing data from the current reopening phase of school sports, which allows indoor practices, Moore said.
“Over the past two and a half weeks, while there have been close contacts identified within teams, we have not seen evidence of teammates transmitting the virus to one another,” she said.
Some health experts have raised concerns about a fuller reopening of sports because of the nature of their close contact and physical exertion.
Gov. Phil Scott used the reopening news to remind Vermonters to be careful to follow social distancing guidance, particularly with the Super Bowl coming on Sunday. He said to parents, “Don’t ruin it for your kids.”
The latest in vaccines
More than 10% of Vermonters age 16 and over had received at least one dose of the vaccine as of Friday, Scott said.
That includes 58,219 people who have received vaccines so far, according to Human Services Secretary Mike Smith. Of those, 21% are people from the latest phase of the vaccine rollout, Vermonters age 75 and older.
The state plans to open new clinics in the coming weeks to expand geographic reach, including new clinics in Alburgh in Grand Isle County and in Beecher Falls in Essex County, Smith said.
Homebound Vermonters could soon begin to receive the vaccine in partnership with emergency medical services and home health agencies. Smith said the beginning of that initiative would only include Vermonters 75 and older who already receive home health services, which will contact their patients to arrange a time for the vaccine.
Officials are working on a way to identify and reach out to homebound Vermonters who don’t receive home health services, he said.
The state reported 107 new Covid cases Friday and no new deaths, Health Commissioner Mark Levine said, with a total of 181 deaths since the start of the pandemic. Health department data shows 55 people are currently hospitalized with the virus.
