It’s easy for the Georgia Athletic Association to project hope for fall football when no one knows the health status of team members. But silence about the prevalence of COVID-19 among the more than 100 football players working out in UGA facilities raises serious public health concerns for Athens residents.

Last week, the number of new COVID-19 cases in the Classic City increased by 166.7% compared to the week prior. With an unknown level of spread among returned athletes, reopened bars and a trend toward younger populations falling ill, college towns benefit from having as much information as possible.

Yet Athens Mayor Kelly Girtz told The Red & Black even he is unaware of the health status of football players. Girtz said the cooperation between the city government and Georgia’s Department of Public Health has not been duplicated by the university.

That’s a big problem. On June 20, as many as 30 LSU football players entered the team’s quarantine procedures, according to Sports Illustrated. None contracted the virus through training, but rather from activities in Baton Rouge, including trips to bars.

Last Friday, ESPN reported that Clemson athletics has conducted 430 coronavirus tests since athletes returned to campus on June 1. The number of positive test results among football players there has reached 37 after 25 days of voluntary, in-person workouts.

The trend persists throughout the SEC. Auburn, Alabama, Florida and Ole Miss have all seen cases crop up among football players. Ole Miss was the only program to break the pattern of institutional silence, with its athletic department confirming instances of positive tests which triggered quarantine measures.

Athletic departments unwilling to share information about viral spread have defended their action, or rather inaction, by citing the Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act, which protects student records from public view and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which does the same for health information.

No one is asking for specific names. That’s not the point. Coaches can quibble over the ethics of reporting specifics once the season gets underway and uninjured players miss games while quarantined. The point is that the UGAAA has a moral responsibility to the people of Athens, who give Georgia sports both their loud support and their hard-earned dollars.

Perhaps lost in the ‘Hey that’s neat,’ appeal of football players Latavious Brini and Jalen Kimber’s Subway heroics last weekend, is that both athletes were downtown interacting with community members without masks or proper social distancing.

In a June 13 video featuring the team walking as a group down East Washington Street to register to vote, several are unmasked as they stand shoulder to shoulder.

These public examples should be concerning for the UGAAA and head coach Kirby Smart, who time and again claim that the input of public health officials drives their COVID-19 protocols. It seems the CDC — which recommends cloth face coverings in public and six feet of physical separation — doesn’t count.

Luckily for the UGAAA, no one’s holding them accountable.

Interpreting an NCAA rule which prohibits coaches from learning the details of athletes’ voluntary workouts, the SEC has barred both institutional and independent media from covering the return to summer training, and UGA complied.

Smart and UGAAA personnel have repeatedly assured the public that they’re taking every precaution to protect the health of players and staff. They’ve said players will train in small groups, they’ll dutifully sanitize all equipment and the team will quarantine any athletes who contract the virus.

Such claims are expected. To comply with both NCAA and state regulations, the football team had to nominally abide by strict preventative procedures.

In the weight room, they’re undoubtedly being cautious. It’s in the UGAAA’s best interest to be as safe as possible during the voluntary workout period given that athletes require a healthy and productive summer to get in gear before September.

What’s not beneficial for the association, which is banking on a fall season full of Sanford Stadium ticket sales to stay profitable in fiscal year 2021, is doubt about the team’s ability to stay virus-free. So officially, the team is completely healthy. But just how many of the 104 new COVID-19 cases last week were athletes? How many began with athletes?

Conveniently, a conference-level mandate to block reporters makes the radio silence seem out of the university’s hands. But the UGAAA’s complete lack of transparency is both purposeful and potentially dangerous as cases begin to spike again in Athens.

Printed with permission from The Red & Black independent student media organization based in Athens, Georgia; redandblack.com/sports