Amid COVID Spike, N.J. Governor Shuts Down Indoor Sports, Including Swimming
Facing rising cases of COVID-19, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy announced on Monday that all organized indoor sports, including swimming, will be suspended for four weeks beginning on Saturday and running through Jan. 2, 2021. Murphy’s edict calls for the suspension of youth, high school and adult recreation sports, and applies to games and practices.
Because the New Jersey Sports Interscholastic Athletic Association (NJSIAA) previously delayed the start of winter high school sports until January, those sports will not be affected by Murphy’s decision. However, club and YMCA programs will be expected to shut down for a month, leaving athletes without the opportunity to train.
“As folks know, I am big sports fan and all of my kids play,” Murphy said. “I hope and intend to see the winter sports season in January. I want to see that high school senior get to play his or her last season and I value the importance of sports for the physical and mental well-being of our children. But we are seeing outbreaks related to indoor sports and this is a prudent, short-term step to slow the spread.”
The fact that swimming is affected by Murphy’s decision goes against a recent study by the New Jersey Swim Safety Alliance that identified zero COVID-19 breakouts among 200,000-plus people passing through 44 indoor pools between July 2 and mid-November.
College and professional sports will be exempt from Murphy’s ruling.
Most pools hold Chlorine levels 1.0 and 1.5 parts per million (some as high as 3.0) to maintain a healthy pool. Also please consider other factors – Age of Facility, HVAC systems, Bather load Type Chlorine/Ozone, Indoor/Outdoor, Quality of the Water ( Let’s be honest on this one SOME areas U.S. / Internationally have better quality water). The other concern/Issue I have is the “Specialist” used has NOT been involved with anything water related since 2017 – Bio here http://www.uniroma4.it/?q=node/1035 Not knocking his skill set BUT he from Rome so I feel many folks would like to see U.S. Testing 1st before pool closures (IMO)… I really QUESTION the LACK of testing in the U.S on this very subject… Since Feb/March I still have not found 1 U.S test that show clear/accurate testing #’s of Chlorinated pools vs. Covid-19!!!
Ja Bounce He who claims using science for decisions hasn’t done a bit of it for swimming. DISGUStING.
No a single outbreak in ANY POOL, ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD!
Kelly Spencer Williams not the pool the locker rooms and gym areas you have to walk through
Jenny Carrera,
They don’t use the locker rooms. They mask and suit up prior to enter the facility. They are temperature checked and masked until entering the water. They exit the water, mask up and go home soaking wet.
Ridiculous! In GA. My kid swims for SwimAtl and the Select kids even went as far as swimming in lake in April to train before opened back up. We’ve had no outbreaks. If colleges are exempt how do they expect the recruits to train?
Purchase some fans and cross ventilate the air, don’t allow changing in locker rooms and don’t allow sharing of equipment. It’s that easy New Jersey!!!
Julie Tellier they’ve been following really strict guidelines here for swimming. This is so sad. Instead of our governor canceling sports that are actually transmitting COVID, he cancels all of them, including the ones with virtually no risk . ?
Erin Cadigan believe it or not here in Vegas the majority of our pools are indoors. We have been practicing since June by following the guidelines I stated. We travel to Utah to compete.
Julie Tellier it is what we all have been doing and it has been working. This is unbelievable over reach.
Erin Cadigan exactly…the science is there, and swimming in NJ followed it, and got great results…but Gov Murphy just lumped swimming with the rest – despite his emphasis on following the science.
My teen son and his swim teammate will be on Fox & Friends tomorrow at 8:15am to talk about this.
Melissa Hart Moss hopefully they can rally and bring it back. Hoping it is truly only on hold until January.
He is a Covid freak and needs to quarantine himself in his house with mask on. There have been Zero Covid breakouts in pools- Chlorine kills bacteria. Let these kids swim!
Stupid is as stupid does. As long as college football is ok nothing else matters.
Or, we could be honest and just call him the ass-hat that he is and leave it at that.
Thats because he’s a Tyrant. So much for science right?
So sad!
Same here in Michigan, except you can use a pool at a fitness enter for “exercise,” and college swimming/sports can continue, but not my son’s club or our HS team because it’s “organized.” Yeah…makes total sense. Science has nothing to do with our Governor’s decisions.
At the pools here in Virginia, they use pool water to sanitize the deck, bleachers, chairs, etc.
They literally use the same water to sanitize that we swim in…and yet pool restrictions are still in place.
The irony astounds me.
Here in Michigan our pathetic gov decided to “pause” girls high school swimming with only one meet left. The state championship. Nothing but a control freak.
http://chng.it/W5HWf6Ph
Please help our NJ swimmers by requesting an exception for restrictions on swimming to the governor.
https://nj.gov/cgi-bin/governor/govmail/govmail-56_s1.pl?selected=Labor
https://swimswam.com/survey-44-new-jersey-indoor-pool-operators-report-no-spread-of-coronavirus/
Thank you!