AUBURN, Ala. – From high-tech testing and tracing to hourly locker room cleanings, Auburn Athletics is taking extraordinary measures to protect student-athletes from the coronavirus.
"In the middle of a pandemic, we're doing everything conceivable to keep our student-athletes safe," said Dr. Michael Goodlett, Auburn's team physician since 1993 and a member of the SEC's Return to Activity and Medical Guidance Task Force. "We're doing everything imaginable to make it a safe environment for them to work out and prepare to play."
Dr. Michael Goodlett (center) serves on the SEC's Return to Activity and Medical Guidance Task Force.
Before student-athletes returned to campus this summer for voluntary workouts, they completed a questionnaire regarding COVID-19 symptoms, exposure and travel history. Upon arrival, student-athletes answered the same questions, needing to answer no to each before being admitted to athletics facilities for testing.
"We elected to test everyone when they arrived," said Goodlett, who administered a PCR test, which requires nasal and pharyngeal swabs. "It's the gold standard to determine if you have it or not. It's not pleasant, but it's the best one, very sensitive and very specific."
"Doc and his team, along with our administration, they spent months preparing for our guys to come back," Auburn football coach Gus Malzahn said. "They're going the extra mile to try to keep our players safe and healthy."
Auburn also tested for IgM and IgG antibodies to see if student-athletes and the staff who interact directly with them had been previously infected with COVID-19.
"We had hoped that a lot of people would have antibodies, and that that would provide immunity from COVID," Goodlett said. "What we've found out is not many of us had antibodies, and the presence of antibodies did not guarantee immunity, because we've had people with antibodies who initially had negative tests subsequently test positive. But that's still good information."
Auburn Athletics' physicians performed heart tests – a blood test to determine troponin levels, an EKG and a stress echocardiogram - on anyone who had antibodies or tested positive for COVID-19, which ruled out cardiovascular damage in all cases.
Auburn's commitment to contact tracing – monitoring anyone in close contact with someone who's infected - has minimized COVID-19's spread, Goodlett said.
Auburn Athletics chief operating officer Marcy Girton and technology director Kevin Duvall devised a system that uses a QR code to generate a mobile symptom questionnaire, record temperature readings, and which athletics facilities the respondent will visit that day.
"That way, if someone tests positive, we can immediately pull up the spreadsheet and see everybody that's in that building that day," Goodlett said. "That's been very useful because we knew we were going to have some positives. We haven't had an overabundance of positives. When we have had one, in every case it's been limited to where maybe a roommate is also positive. But we've had no widespread clusters where one positive caused five cases or more."
'The gold standard': Auburn Athletics conducts two-swab COVID-19 tests on student-athletes and staff with direct interaction
In consultation with State Health Officer Dr. Scott Harris, Auburn limited its summer workout groups to 10, eight student-athletes plus a strength coach and athletic trainer.
"Our facilities are big enough that we can work out four groups at the same time but they're way socially distanced," Goodlett said. "You worked out with your group of eight, but had no real interaction with other groups. One group was gone before the next group arrived, and everything was cleaned."
Auburn Athletics partners with Synergy Laboratories in Mobile, which also supplies COVID-19 tests to East Alabama Medical Center and Auburn University Medical Clinic.
"They have some of the finest testing in the world," Goodlett said. "We're fortunate that we've got as much as we need to help keep our student-athletes safe. It's amazing how many people have been our partners in doing this.
"We have been testing on a very frequent basis. If you have a positive, we immediately quarantine your roommate for at least five days and start the testing algorithm on the roommate. We quarantine and test your workout group initially and hold them until we get the test results.
"By using small groups and contract tracing we have done, I believe, a really good job of limiting the spread when we have had a positive."
"The great news is, the few positives that we've had have all been virtually asymptomatic throughout the whole two-week isolation." Dr. Michael Goodlett
HOUSE CALLS
In most cases, news of a positive COVID-19 test has surprised student-athletes, Goodlett said.
"The large majority have been asymptomatic," he said. "I tell them they're positive and they look at me like, 'Are you sure? Because I feel fine.'
"The great news is, the few positives that we've had have all been virtually asymptomatic throughout the whole two-week isolation. We've had a couple who looked like they had a bad cold for two or three days, and we've had quite commonly smell and taste be a little altered. But that's been transient, none of that has been permanent."
Student-athletes who test positive isolate for 14 days. Each day at noon, Goodlett and head football athletic trainer Robbie Stewart deliver their lunch, check their temperature and conduct a brief physical.
"Probably the most important thing we do every day is call and talk to the parents to make sure they know that things are going well," Goodlett said.
Ozone: Football helmets are cleaned in a machine that kills bacteria
DEEP CLEAN
Auburn's equipment staff contributes to the effort by aggressively cleaning and disinfecting, associate athletic director Dana Marquez said.
After laundering, Auburn's gear goes into an Ozone chamber, which releases a high-oxygenated gas.
"At that point, we should have killed 99.9 percent of any superbug left on that fabric," Marquez said.
Auburn Athletics' facilities and operations staff provided an electrostatic sprayer that uses a disinfectant approved by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to clean locker rooms, athletic training rooms, offices, hallways, elevators and student-athlete residence halls.
'Team effort': associate athletic director Dana Marquez disinfects Auburn's locker room
"A lot of time and effort goes into it," Marquez said. "Working in conjunction with the strength staff and the athletic training staff and Doc Goodlett's sports medicine group, it's been a really good team effort. The procedures have been in place, we've just ramped up the process."
Auburn's strength and conditioning team works with the equipment staff to clean the weight room during and after each session.
"Ryan Russell and his group have done a phenomenal job of wiping everything down while the lift is going on," Marquez said. "Then we go in right after the lift and spray down the entire room."
In compliance with a new Occupational Safety and Health Administration policy, Auburn keeps a sanitation log to record each electrostatic spray. For the locker room, that's an hourly process.
"Just staying on top of that and continue to hopefully keep everybody healthy including our staff," Marquez said.
"I've been very proud of our players," Malzahn said. "The way they responded, being responsible and doing what was asked of them by Doc Goodlett and our medical team."
Jeff Shearer is a Senior Writer at AuburnTigers.com. Follow him on Twitter: @jeff_shearer