OPRF's 2021-22 basketball season was cancelled until further notice by the school Friday. School officials fear COVID-19 will infect the players. | OPRF
OPRF's 2021-22 basketball season was cancelled until further notice by the school Friday. School officials fear COVID-19 will infect the players. | OPRF
Oak Park & River Forest H.S. has banned all student participation in winter sports and extracurricular activities, citing “17 new COVID-19 cases,” according to school superintendent Gregory Johnson.
Johnson made the announcement Friday night via email, as hundreds of OPRF students were watching its boys’ basketball team defeated cross-town rival Fenwick 66-52, in a game played at Credit Union 1 Arena, formerly University of Illinois- Chicago Pavilion.
Boys basketball practices and games are no longer allowed by the school, effective Saturday, for fear the students could contract COVID-19 and die, according to Johnson.
Theresa Chapple-McGruder is shutting down OPRF sports and has cancelled the school's winter concert.
| Village of Oak Park
“We have seen a concerning uptick in cases of COVID-19,” wrote Johnson. “The (Village of Oak Park) health department has directed us to immediately cancel all clubs, athletics and extra-curricular activities including practices and competitions effective Saturday December 4 through winter break.”
The school decision was dictated by Village of Oak Park Department of Public Health director Theresa D. Chapple-McGruder, who recently saw her "emergency regulatory power" extended by the village board. That gives her authority to individually decide whether schools or businesses located within the Oak Park village boundaries can remain open or must close, at her order.
OPRF SAT testing, scheduled for Saturday, and the school’s winter concert, scheduled for Thursday Dec. 9, were officially listed as “cancelled” on the school calendar as of late Friday.
“We understand that this announcement is disappointing and frustrating, especially as winter extra-curricular activities were just getting under way. However, protecting the health and safety of our entire community is of the utmost priority," Johnson said. “As a result, we are working to gather more information, thoroughly determine the best course of action for the next two weeks and get answers to the many questions that this action will generate."
The announcement comes as a large study tracking 1.5 million infected children found "that that not a single healthy child between the ages of 5 and 18 died of Covid in Germany in the first 15 months of the epidemic."
“Overall, the SARS-CoV-2-associated burden of a severe disease course or death in children and adolescents is low,” the researchers reported.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said Friday that the so-called "Omnicron variant" of COVID-19 is now present in 38 countries, including the U.S. It produces "extremely mild symptoms" than earlier variants, doctors say, and has yet to claim a death.
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