Commonwealth Games 2022 Opening Ceremony: Australian team make big mask call
When the Australian team march in Friday’s Commonwealth Games opening ceremony there’ll be one thing missing from the special moment.
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More than 250 Australian athletes and team officials will march in Friday morning’s Commonwealth Games opening ceremony in Birmingham, but in a big turnaround of Australia’s strict covid protocols, they will not be wearing masks.
Chef de mission Petria Thomas said at the announcement of Australia’s two flag bearers Toowoomba’s squash player and six time Commonwealth Games stalwart Rachael Grinham, and the highly successful men’s hockey captain Eddie Ockenden from Tasmania: “for that special moment (marching in the opening ceremony) it will be masks off. We’re really focusing on wearing masks indoors and while we’re moving around in a crowded sort of space, even outdoors, but given given the the moment we will be masks off, if people want to.”
Prior to arriving in Birmingham all Australian team members were ordered to wear masks inside and also outdoors to minimise the risks of contracting covid.
However Thomas said she was not looking at relaxing other Australian specific covid rules, such as allowing athletes to cheer team mates in other sports.
“Not at the moment,’’ she said, adding:” you know unfortunately covid is just too big of a risk .. to allow athletes or staff to go and watch events and sit in the general public seating area is just deemed too high a risk’’.
As revealed earlier this week, Australia’s athletes who have covid will be allowed to compete in the Games competition if cleared by the team doctor. Thursday it emerged that the current world javelin champion Kelsey Lee-Barber has tested positive and will delay her arrival in Birmingham.
Thomas said “our goal is to make sure that we can get people to the start line”.
She added: “ this this is a big moment in an athlete’s life and to be able to potentially miss out because of something like covid-19 would be heartbreaking. No stone has been unturned for trying to get the athletes to the start line and I commend the Games Organising Committee for that approach.”
In Birmingham athletes who are well and are shedding low amounts of the virus will be allowed to compete if it poses little risk to themselves. Each decision will be made by the athlete’s team doctor and is a major deviation to how other major sports have been conducted over the past two years of the pandemic.
However covid athletes who are in team sports, or play in a sport that is held indoors, will be assessed at a higher standard than individuals, because of the elevated risk of transmitting the highly contagious virus to others.
“If an athlete is well enough to train or compete - we need to not put others at risk - so we may transport them to their event in a car rather than the team bus,’’ said Australian team doctor Michael Makdissi, a veteran of five Commonwealth Games teams.
But Dr Makdissi said it was ‘tough’’ to decide the participation of covid athletes from sports that weren’t individual.
He said he will look at the physical presentation of the athlete and how they feel, the amount of virus in their system and which way the viral load was trending with repeat testing.
Dr Makdissi said there was now “less” medical concern around how coronavirus impacts the heart. But in borderline cases he will consult with specialists such as cardiologists to help him make a determination.
Doctors look at the cycle threshold (CT) level, which is how many magnifications a sample undergoes before the virus is detected.
“Someone in the high teens or low 20’s CT value is a high viral load and they may not compete, but someone in the 30’s CT is starting to get well, so it depends on their event. There is a not a specific figure that is a cutoff, it will be looked at case by case,” Dr Makdissi said.
Dr Makdissi said Britain has no government restrictions in place, no mask wearing, and it is regarded in the same league as a common cold. The Games are also bringing together people from around the Commonwealth with different vaccination policies.
He said he was grateful that each team doctor could make health decisions about team members rather than having a specific rule. But Dr Makdissi also acknowledged this benefitted larger teams such as Australia and England, who had access to experts and team doctors.
“I worry other teams don’t have that level of care,’’ he said.
“The Commonwealth Games Federation has set up a system for smaller teams, but they will have less control in the decision making and for them it will be more about specific numbers (of CT values).’’
FEARS COVID WILL CRIPPLE AUSTRALIA’S COMM GAMES
Fears a Covid outbreak could cripple Australia’s gold-medal-chasing cricketers have heightened at the Commonwealth Games, with star Alyssa Healy admitting the idea of escaping the tournament without a positive case is nothing more than a ‘pipe dream’.
Healy’s honest assessment follows revelations on Wednesday that Covid-positive athletes could be cleared to compete in Birmingham this week should they attain approval from health experts.
Athletes who play in team sports will reportedly be held to higher Covid protocols, but it is still feasible Australia’s all-conquering women’s cricket team could encounter an opponent who is Covid-positive – a situation that has the potential to demolish any team’s gold-medal hopes.
“I think that’s the nature of the world at the moment, is that’s going to happen,” Healy said when asked about the prospect of coming up against a Covid-positive opponent.
“We hope it doesn’t come into our group, but I think that’s a pipe dream - I’m sure it will at some point.
“I think we’re just making sure we’re doing what we can to minimise that risk and we’ll let the opposition do what they want to do. And yeah, hopefully we’ll just stay safe within our group.”
Healy said Covid protocols and testing at the Games were consistent with that which the Southern Stars had encountered in recent tournaments and added that the team was cautious about taking any risks that could derail their Games.
“We take quite a cautious approach to COVID, knowing that if one goes down the potential that more in the team are going to go down,” Healy added.
“And I think all the girls are super professional in how they handle that and how they respond to that.”
Australia will play their first pool match on Friday against fellow heavyweights India in front of what is anticipated to be a sold-out crowd at Edgbaston.
COMM GAMES SHOCK COVID CONFESSION
Athletes with Covid-19 will be able to compete at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games after the health of any infected athlete has been delegated to doctors linked with each country’s team.
Around 12 athletes every day have been found to have coronavirus when they are tested upon arrival at the Games village.
But the ability of those athletes to compete – which could number near to 100 by the time of the Thursday night Opening Ceremony – now rests entirely with their own team doctor.
This could lead to the unsatisfactory situation where one athlete is ruled out of the Games because of Covid-19, while another athlete returning a similar viral load, called a cycle threshold (CT), is allowed to compete.
So far none of the 433 athletes in the Australian team have tested positive, team officials say.
Behind the scenes officials from some small Commonwealth nations believe some countries may turn a blind eye to athletes with Covid -19 as long as they appear well or are asymptomatic, and especially if they are medal contenders.
The Commonwealth Games Federation medical doctor Peter Harcourt, who is also the AFL doctor, said that “these are difficult decisions” and acknowledged that some of the decisions could be unfair. But he added: “Covid is unfair”.
He said the “matrix” of an athlete’s past history of void, their vaccination status, and the CT levels of testing, which determines how much virus a person is shedding and whether the trend was increasing or decreasing would be considered by team doctors.
“The team doctor who has registration (of athlete entries) is who makes the final decision … each nation is policing their own athlete.”
He said there was no hard and fast CT levels that would trigger an automatic exclusion, other than saying levels in the 20s would indicate an infection.
“If you see an improvement (in the CT levels) then you can have a lot more comfort, and if they have lost their symptoms, these are all factors that will be evaluated.’’
Dr Harcourt said that the Games had a quarantine hotel and good clinic support at the Games villages.
“We are further down road of the pandemic, we are on top of it and we can have a successful Games with minimal issues,’’ he said.
Australia has adopted a particularly high state of vigilance about Covid and are more strict than other Commonwealth countries at these Games. Australian officials have demanded that its athletes wear masks at all times, even outdoors, and has banned them from attending sports events other than their own.
Australia’s athletes will be also subject to internal testing at the first sign of any symptoms, using portable BioFire units that can batch-test for respiratory and gastrointestinal pathogens in about 45 minutes.
Meanwhile the World Health Organisation has upgraded its status of monkeypox to be a public health emergency of international concern, but the Commonwealth Games Federation said it was not worried about the virus.
Dr Harcourt said: “We keep tabs on monkeypox, and there is very little in this area. There is some in the UK but not in the Midlands … at the moment we are not concerned,”
Officials said that only 50 per cent of the 5000 athletes competing in Birmingham have been drug tested in the past 12 months.
Dr Harcourt said that in addition there were “a couple of thousand” test results still to be uploaded from laboratories.
Drug testers will conduct 900 tests at the Games, and will also rely on intelligence gathering
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Originally published as Commonwealth Games 2022 Opening Ceremony: Australian team make big mask call
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