State’s health secretary says Gov. Wolf won’t mandate cancellation of high school sports

By: Chris Harlan
Tuesday, August 18, 2020 | 11:10 AM

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If the PIAA ignores Gov. Tom Wolf’s advice and allows fall sports to continue, his administration won’t turn his strong recommendation into a mandate.

“The governor has been very clear about that: There are no plans to do that,” state Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine said Tuesday.

Wolf’s administration wants interscholastic and recreational youth sports delayed until at least Jan. 1.

The PIAA board will decide the fate of fall sports Friday. PIAA administrators were scheduled to meet Tuesday with the Pennsylvania Athletic Oversight Committee, a bipartisan group of state legislators.

Levine, answering questions at a press conference, said she continues to support Wolf’s recommendation, which was endorsed by the state departments of health and education. Levine has faced criticism from Republican lawmakers over the specific data — or lack thereof — used to support the youth sports recommendation.

Levine has cited national statistics while supporting the shutdown.

“School sports haven’t started, school is just starting this week, so I can’t use data from sports that haven’t officially started,” Levine said. “So we were using some data from other states. Children in other states are really no different than children here, so our recommendation was based upon on that.”

The state doesn’t have sports-specific data but has seen a rise in covid-19 infections among adolescents, she said.

“We have seen a significant increase in the number of young people less than 19 that have covid-19 in Pennsylvania in almost all regions of Pennsylvania,” Levine said. “We have seen that. We’re not able to track it through our case investigations to a specific game or a specific practice, but we have seen an increase and we’re concerned about that.”

Chris Harlan is a TribLive reporter covering sports. He joined the Trib in 2009 after seven years as a reporter at the Beaver County Times. He can be reached at charlan@triblive.com.