In March, sports at all levels around the country were shut down due to the coronavirus outbreak. Officials and health experts at national and local levels were concerned that the virus would spread via the exposure that comes with playing contact sports.

Sports saw a gradual return with either social distancing measures or a bubble environment. For football, high school football returned before any NCAA or NFL games. Football Scoop points out that football does not appear to be contributing to COVID-19 spread at the high school level.

As Maddie Robertson notes, high schools in the state of Utah have been playing for 4+ weeks now with Alabama, Indiana, Tennessee and Alaska right behind at 3+ weeks into the season. Teams in a large number of other states have been playing 2+ weeks.

With all those states multiple weeks into the season, there have been over 1,000 high school football games played around the country.

“To our knowledge, there have been no reported cases of significant community spread following a high school football game,” Robertson writes.

“Data shows there has not been a significant spike in COVID cases in any of the states that have been playing football for the last 2-4 weeks,” Robertson adds.

Robertson’s article shows state COVID-tracking charts for those interested in the data. No indication of community spread at the high school level is an encouraging sign for the SEC football season.