Center Moriches High School forfeited its football game last week after some team members contracted the contagious Coxsackievirus and other players were unable to suit up because of injury, ineligibility or personal reasons, according to school officials.
In a letter shared with families, Ricardo Soto, Center Moriches school district superintendent, said there are no additional cases of the virus, beyond the few players identified before Friday’s scheduled contest against Miller Place High School. It’s unclear how many players were diagnosed with the virus, but Soto said they will return to school and athletics after receiving medical clearance.
“As a precautionary measure, the district conducted a deep, extensive cleaning of all three buildings, including hallways, locker rooms, cafeterias, and classrooms over the weekend,” he said in the letter, adding the situation will continue to be monitored.
The Coxsackievirus spreads through close contact with a person who has the virus; by touching contaminated surfaces; from droplets released by an infected person who is coughing, sneezing or talking; and from fluid from blisters, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
While it’s unclear what strain of the virus the players contracted, the strains that typically cause mouth sores and a skin rash on the palms of hands and the soles of the feet are commonly known as hand, foot and mouth disease, according to the CDC. Hand, foot and mouth disease usually strikes children under age 5 but people of all ages can get sick.
It usually causes mild flu-like symptoms, said Dr. Bruce Farber, chief of public health and epidemiology at Northwell Health. The virus, Farber said, should not be cause for alarm and normally resolves in a week.
“It certainly causes people to get sick temporarily,” he said. “But it’s not horrible.”
Center Moriches High head football coach Matt Millheiser told Newsday he discovered a potential outbreak of the virus Friday after noticing two players had blisters on their hands shortly before they were scheduled to depart for the 6.p.m. game at Miller Place High School.
Millheiser said he then began to inquire and learned other players were also sick or had recently recovered from the virus.
He decided to forfeit, the coach said, because the latest round of illnesses placed the team below the minimum requirement of 16 players available for a game. While there are 22 players on the roster, other team members were out due to injury or ineligibility, he said. In the letter, Soto said some players were out because of personal reasons.
“So, just in an abundance of caution, we decided that since we didn’t really know who had it and wasn’t presenting, we just thought out of respect for Miller Place, it wasn’t the right decision to go over there with a highly contagious disease and spread it to their team,” Millheiser told Newsday.
The locker rooms were disinfected and all players were told to bring back and wash all their apparel, according to Millheiser.
Adam St. Nicholas, head football coach at Miller Place High, said he found out the game was called off while conducting a walk-through on the practice field. While he said he was initially disappointed, he realized Millheiser made the right decision.
“I certainly hope that Center Moriches is getting healthy and healing,” he said in an interview. “I think when you prepare all week to play an opponent, and then you get pulled like two hours before the game, there’s a natural disappointment. But then when you’re able to sit back and gather the information and understand the potential consequences from it, that puts it into perspective a little bit better.”
Farber said it’s not that unusual for the virus to spread among athletes.
“They’re in a locker room. They’re together. It’s the perfect environment to spread a virus like that,” he said.
Center Moriches’ next game is scheduled for Saturday against Bayport-Blue Point, but the school will make a decision later in the week on whether the team will be able to play, according to Millheiser.
Source link
