A San Diego Superior Court judge has blocked provincial officials from preventing young athletes – including high school students – from participating in youth sports operating under the same or similar COVID protocols enforced by professional and college teams.
Judge Earl H. Maas III issued the restraining order on Friday afternoon at 4:42 PM.
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Maas rejected the defense’s arguments that “because there are fewer professional and collegiate teams, the risks to the community are lower in letting them play sports” and that older players are more mature.
Instead, Maas said that the evidence provided by Dr. Monica Gandhi, a Harvard-trained physician and professor of medicine at UC San Francisco, was convincing. She testified that the “transmission rate of viruses in high school sports is equal to or less than that observed in studies in the Major League Baseball and National Football League,” the ruling said.
Maas judged irreparable damage to youth athletes, “continued
a ban on competitive sports will cause irreparable damage to the petitioners. “
The ruling comes after two local high school athletes sued California and San Diego County and sought an injunction requiring the government to allow sports competitions in the high school.
The charges were filed on behalf of Nicholas Gardinera of Scripps Ranch High School in the San Diego Unified School District and Cameron Woolsey of Mission Hills High School in the San Marcos Unified School District.
Nicholas’ father, Marlon Gardinera, is a soccer coach at Scripps Ranch High. He said in January that the lawsuit was about equal treatment, that is, if professional athletes and college athletes play, why can’t high school athletes play?
The defendants include Governor Gavin Newsom, the Department of Health, San Diego County, and his public health officer, Dr. Wilma Wooten.
THE STATE HAD ALREADY REMOVED RESTRICTIONS
Earlier in the day, the state had already taken steps to ease restrictions on youth sports statewide.
California officials announced Friday morning that youth sports leagues could resume next week in parts of California and the vast majority of the state in late March, paving the way for shortened spring versions of high school football, hockey, gymnastics, and water polo. . But now, the TRO released in San Diego on Friday allows youth athletes in San Diego County to start playing immediately.
Since the pandemic began in March, almost all interscholastic, club and community sports in California have been suspended, as well as adult recreational sports that are also covered by the new rules. The California Interscholastic Federation, the sport’s high school governing body, moved most fall sports to spring in the hope that students could save some of their season.
But state rules only allowed football, baseball, soccer, and almost all other team sports to resume once a province emerged from the most restrictive of the four levels of virus rules, a slow process that threatened to weaken all spring seasons.
Under the new rules, the overall ranking of a province does not matter. The only measure used for sports competitions is per capita cases. All outdoor sports are allowed – with security protocols – once a province reaches a level of 14 cases or lower for every 100,000 people.
There are 27 provinces that meet that standard and could resume games as early as February 26. Virtually all of them are located in Northern California and include three of the San Francisco Bay Area’s four largest counties – Santa Clara, Alameda, and San Francisco – as well as many of the state’s most rural counties.
An additional 16 counties, including Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange and Fresno, are expected to meet the standard within a few weeks.
THE JUDICIAL PROCEDURE TO CONTINUE IN MARCH
The parties involved in Friday’s ruling will be back in court on March 5 for a hearing on whether a preliminary injunction should not be issued on the same grounds.