September 28, 2020

COVID-19 in Youth Soccer

Category: Article Summary

Topic: Public Health Policy and Practice

Keywords (Tags): public health

• [Pre-print, not peer-reviewed] Youth soccer clubs in the US involving 85,861 players that had restarted in-person activities reported 218 COVID-19 cases among their members. None of the cases resulted in hospitalization or death. The authors used these cases to estimate the incidence of COVID-19 among youth soccer athletes and concluded that it was lower than the overall national rate for children in the US (254 vs 477 cases per 100,000). No relationship was identified between club COVID-19 incidence and phase of return to soccer. Youth soccer clubs universally report implementing risk reduction procedures.

Watson et al. (Sept 27, 2020). COVID-19 in Youth Soccer. Pre-print downloaded Sept 28 from https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.09.25.20201616