Amid COVID Spike, N.J. Governor Shuts Down Indoor Sports, Including Swimming

lane line rope pool swim t bottom-NJSIAA

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.

 

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Ja Bounce
3 years ago

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!!!

Eileen Ford Hedges
3 years ago
Reply to  Ja Bounce

Ja Bounce He who claims using science for decisions hasn’t done a bit of it for swimming. DISGUStING.

Kelly Spencer Williams

No a single outbreak in ANY POOL, ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD!

Jenny Carrera
3 years ago

Kelly Spencer Williams not the pool the locker rooms and gym areas you have to walk through

Dawn
Dawn
3 years ago
Reply to  Jenny Carrera

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.

Anonymous
Anonymous
3 years ago

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?

Julie Tellier
3 years ago

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!!!

Erin Cadigan
3 years ago
Reply to  Julie Tellier

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 . ?

Julie Tellier
3 years ago
Reply to  Julie Tellier

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.

Deb Dyer Koppelmann
3 years ago
Reply to  Julie Tellier

Julie Tellier it is what we all have been doing and it has been working. This is unbelievable over reach.

Melissa Hart Moss
3 years ago
Reply to  Julie Tellier

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.

Erin Cadigan
3 years ago
Reply to  Julie Tellier

Melissa Hart Moss hopefully they can rally and bring it back. Hoping it is truly only on hold until January.

Diana Terry Bolding
3 years ago

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!

Sharon Chocko Gallagher

Stupid is as stupid does. As long as college football is ok nothing else matters.

David Whelchel
3 years ago

Or, we could be honest and just call him the ass-hat that he is and leave it at that.

Allie Jon
3 years ago

Thats because he’s a Tyrant. So much for science right?

Gabi Gray
3 years ago

So sad!

Marie Kopinski
3 years ago

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.

Dave Marr
3 years ago

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.

Richard VanDyne
Richard VanDyne
3 years ago

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.

Shindig Smith
3 years ago

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!

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