Nick Saban voices frustration with contact tracing quarantine protocol
By SDS Staff
Published:
Alabama is one of the many teams with an unexpected bye this Saturday. UA was scheduled to face LSU, but the Tigers’ did not have enough players available to suit up Saturday due to COVID protocols, including quarantine to those with established high-risk exposure after contact tracing.
Since Florida’s situation led to multiple postponements and Texas A&M’s exposure is expected to lead to a Week 9 game being postponed, it’s likely that the current situation will carry over into Week 9 due to those 14-day quarantines making players unavailable to play. Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban shared his frustration with the 14-day quarantine protocol attached to contact tracing during his weekly radio show.
“… [T]he social-tracing part of it is the reason that these games are being canceled. It’s not the numbers of players that are testing positive, aight,” Saban said, per Charlie Potter of Bama OnLine. “We’ve been ’round and around on this even to the point where the people in the federal government — Dr. (Anthony) Fauci and the people that work for him — told us that if you’re gonna get this, you’re gonna get it in seven days, OK. That’s the science, aight. You’re probably gonna get it within five, but seven days max.
“So, we could test guys out of this in five, six and seven, let them come back in eight days, and we’re having them quarantine for 14 days. So, you really have to quarantine if you don’t have it just because you’re around somebody for longer than if you get it — you’re out for longer. And you may not even get sick. We should use the science to make sure that we keep people safe, aight, but when we have science that verifies what safe is then we should use that.”
Saturday Down South reports and comments on the news around the Southeastern Conference as well as larger college football topics.
