SACRAMENTO – Officials with the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) today ended the Regional Stay at Home Order, lifting the order for all regions statewide, including the three regions that had still been under the order – San Joaquin Valley, Bay Area and Southern California. Four-week ICU capacity projections for these three regions are above 15%, the threshold that allows regions to exit the order. The Sacramento Region exited the order on January 12 and the Northern California region never entered the order.
This action allows all counties statewide to return to the rules and framework of the Blueprint for a Safer Economy and color-coded tiers that indicate which activities and businesses are open based on local case rates and test positivity. The majority of the counties are in the strictest, or purple tier. Tier updates are provided weekly on Tuesdays. Individual counties could choose to impose stricter rules.
Read the full announce by clicking here.
What does this mean for VCS Athletics?
Solano County remains in the Widespread – Purple Tier allowing youth sports to begin the use of shared equipment within our cohorts/teams during practice sessions following the CDPH guidelines for masking, social distancing to the maximum extent possible, hygiene and Equipment Sanitation. Athletes and coaches are expected to choose one team for the season, they are not to participate/coach on multiple teams during the same time frame. Once outside competitions begin, due to the added risk of spreading the COVID virus if an athlete contracted the virus while competing with an outside school, the athlete must stop training with all other teams.
For example: If Joe is participating on the school football team, he cannot concurrently participate with his outside club basketball team. Joe must choose to participate with only one team. Also, if Joe is currently participating on the school cross country team and practicing with his school basketball team, once he starts to compete against other schools with his cross country team, he must stop training with the basketball team until he is finished with his cross country season. This is all about protecting everyone involved and we must abide by our county order to follow the CDPH guidelines.
Donna Hagans, VCS Director of Athletics
CURRENT CIF SPORTS SCHEDULE:
IN-SEASON (In-person competitions allowed to begin according to assigned tier): Cheer (Yellow), Cross Country (Purple), Football (Orange), and Women’s Volleyball (Orange)
LIMITED PERIOD for all other high school sports: Baseball (Red), Basketball (Yellow), Competitive Cheer (Yellow), Golf (Purple), Soccer (Orange), Softball (Red), Swimming (Purple), Track & Field (Purple), and Men’s Volleyball (Orange)
Still, the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section has yet a new proposal on the table. They are preparing to vote on a new Sports Calendar for the remaining 2020-2021 school year this week. This new proposal could give the VCS sports league, the Sierra Delta League, the opportunity to determine which sports our small school league could actually make happen this spring based on anticipated movement into particular tiers. The SDL has many things to consider in their decision, such as student-athlete participation numbers, facility availability, transportation, and coaching staff to name a few. Part of the CDPH guidelines requires schools to limit their competitions to their own county and adjacent counties within the same tier. For VCS this means we can only compete with schools in the same tier and located in Solano, Napa, Sacrament, and Yolo counties respectively. The challenge for the SDL is that we are not all in adjacent counties, so VCS is not even allowed to play two of the seven league teams: Golden Sierra and Linden.
Our heads are spinning as A.D.’s as we try to manage the constant changes handed down by both the state and our CIF section along with the many unknowns of this virus. Our goal is the same at this point – we simply want our kids to be able to compete!
Donna Hagans, VCS Director of Athletics
