The government will present its plan for the dissolution of the game on Friday. A document that has been written, rewritten, rewritten, cut and rewritten more than forty times in the past month. Also, it is still not finished. Controversy remains.
– Want sports association competitions;
– The government specifically wants training;
– Public health does not want much.
The rigors of public health – while contagion is decreasing – bothers many, many people. Athlete. their parents. Coach. Deputies. Minister Isabel Charst, clearly dissatisfied. For some reason. The current rules are outdated. Inconsistent as well.
An example: swimming pools and arenas are open for individual practice. But not a tennis center or palace.
Why?
…
Another example: competitions are banned in all sports. Regardless of the level of risk. Canoeing is therefore in a boat similar to cheerleading. Invalid. Especially since scientific data are clear. Not all are equal in the face of game viruses. Discipline is risky. Other, less. Public health should take this into consideration. Government too. We should abandon the principle of equality. Let’s deconfin otherwise.
Comment ?
By dividing the games into four sections. This may be the solution to resolve the deadlock in discussions and to find an acceptable compromise for the largest number of Quebeckers.
Individual outdoor sports
All studies agree: the risk of contagion outside is very low. In January, at the height of the crisis, downhill skiing, cross-country skiing and snowboarding were not the sources of the virus spreading in Quebec, I am confirmed. Last summer there were no more problems than tennis, rowing, running, cycling and golf.
These games should be unconfirmed. Competitions should also be allowed. To organize a game of tennis, by limiting the number of officials and officials of the participants, a bicycle time trial or athletics competitions are held while they respect the away rules.
Outdoor team sports
Last summer, about 125,000 Quebecers participated in official baseball and football games. The needle of outbreak did not work. Infected children – at school or at home – did not infect their peers, many union leaders told me. An indication that the protocols are working.
At the same time, last summer, researchers followed 91,000 Wisconsin football players. Of these, 218 children were infected. Not in the ground. All over. The proportion of half of Wisconsin’s children is their age at the same time. The authors found no association between minor football and the resumption of community camouflage.
Deconferencing baseball and football. In all areas. What about football? It is more complicated. Because a game involves about a hundred people, twenty for baseball and thirty for football. A compromise would be until the end of classes and the stabilization of variant cases before allowing matches to resume.
Individual indoor games
My colleague Tommy Chouinard announced on Monday that the government wanted to reopen all training centers for personal or family practice. So school gymnasiums, castles, swimming pools, arenas, tennis courts. it is reasonable. And of course it is less risky than allowing 100 people to meet in church.
First, let’s allow all youth – and not just those in sports studies or within an excellence program – to have access to platforms. In the second stage, once the variants have been mastered, let us consider competitions involving groups of about ten athletes. In gymnastics or diving, a participant can easily perform his or her routine while keeping a distance from the judges and contestants.
Indoor team games
Well. the heart of the matter. Let’s focus on hockey, a sport that unfortunately loves viruses very much.
All over the world, hockey has caused major outbreaks. In the National League. in Europe. In American universities. Here too. Since the beginning of the second wave, about 60% of outbreaks in sport in Quebec have been associated with hockey, a compilation of public health shows that I was briefly presented with. Since the fall, almost all hockey players in the province can no longer train. (Only sports students have a green light.)
Furthermore, Finnish researchers have only demonstrated that the virus actually spreads between opponents during a match. The authors added 49 transitions, into five teams that had just collided.
Not surprisingly, the public health and government are opposed to the immediate resumption of hockey games. This offends the players and their parents, especially the elite ones, which are displayed loudly on social networks. And in the street, as we saw on Sunday.
Their reasoning? After months of training, young people need a new challenge in sports-study. His discipline deserves to be rewarded. Words that I am sensitive to, and which should be considered. On the other hand, I do not subscribe to the discourse of adults, according to which our best mates and bantam ushers “lose a year” and accumulate behind those elsewhere.
Let me remind you that Quebec’s chances of becoming a regular player in the NHL are 1 in 7,500. We are talking about two to four players per year here. Also, our best expectations are to train. Several times a week for eight months. For Quebec, this is not the only place where parties are banned. This is the situation almost everywhere in Canada. The only exceptions are New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and the Green Zone of Ontario, which are placed around Kingston.
In the United States? It is true that with our neighbors, it is more permissible. Their risk tolerance is certainly higher than elsewhere. So much so that 525,000 Americans have succumbed to the virus. This is more than the number of two great soldiers killed in joint warfare.
There is a middle position between the authority and the prohibition of matches. Restoration of training. An inadequate offer for the 5% who are already entitled to it, but who have not seen their peers since October, will be happy. It is a measure of influence in Western Canada. It is also in favor of François Legaul’s government in the Orange Zone. An acceptable compromise, which I will quickly extend to those red areas, where the variants are absent, to take advantage of the last days before the summer draws to a close.
And the match, when will it happen?
Soon, we hope. Maybe for the end of summer. On three terms: that the vaccination proceeds according to plan, that the hospitals are controlled and that we succeed in getting rid of the most powerful infants.
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