Borchers, an Alter High School grad who played football at Ohio State and is listed as the physician for the Buckeye football team, said he would advise any athlete who has tested positive for COVID-19 to contact their healthcare provider to do a risk assessment before returning to play.
That could include multiple types of cardiac testing, including an EKG or lab work.
Borchers also advised athletes to be aware of signs of myocarditis, which can have multiple causes.
“Shortness of breath, any chest discomfort, exercise, fatigue,” Borchers said. “A middle-aged runner who maybe used to be able to run an 8-minute mile that’s now only able to run 12- or 13-minute miles. These are the things that might alert our healthcare providers to looking at something more specific.
“So not that we need to be, I think, overly scared of this complication, but we need to be aware of it.”
Myocarditis is not new to the medical community or sports medicine, but multiple reports from national outlets indicated concerns about it affecting college athletes played a role in decisions by leagues such as the Big Ten, Pac-12 and Mid-American Conference to call off their fall seasons.
Although the Big Ten has offered little in specific reasons for its lat week, the Pac-12 released documentation that cited “potential serious cardiac side effects in elite athletes” among other reasons.
That interpretation of available medical data is not universal, however.
Duke infectious disease specialist Dr. Cameron Wolfe told Sports Business Daily the risk is “manageable,” and AL.com reported a doctor at the Mayo Clinic advised the Big 12 and Conference USA against canceling their seasons over myocarditis and COVID-19.
“There's just too many unknowns to say we have new damaging, alarming evidence that COVID-19 myocarditis is the big, bad spooky thing in town now, and we need to do something about it," Dr. Michael Ackerman told AL.com. “Not new news at all. We've known that this virus can affect the heart muscle for five months now. It's not new, it just got put forward in a new way, and it's taken on a new life."
In his talk with DeWine, Borchers called sudden cardiac death in athletes “a tragic event and it fortunately is a very rare event.”
“It’s not something that’s common, but something that we almost always hear some reports of and really requires vigilance on preparation,” Borchers said. “So all our great athletic trainers around the state of Ohio that are providing excellent emergency care, our CPR training and the use of automated external defibrillator are really the ways that we can save lives. And so even more important than screening is our preparation. And so obviously I know our coaches, athletic trainers, medical staffs, administrators around the state really take a lot of great pride and have done a great job at instituting that. That being said, we know one of the risks factors for sudden cardiac death is infection of the heart or what you’ve mentioned, myocarditis and although not the most common cause can be a cause of sudden cardiac death and arrhythmia, certainly in athletes.”
More on high school contact sports in Ohio getting the go ahead from Gov. Mike DeWine https://t.co/kDqj7bUdNr
— Marcus Hartman (@marcushartman) August 19, 2020
As far as sports being played this fall, Borchers stressed the importance of the contributions of the whole community in maintaining an environment that allows sports and other extracurricular activities to occur by reducing the prevalence of the novel coronavirus in the community.
That was a takeaway from studying Ohio State athletes since they returned to campus for voluntary workouts in June.
“When we are able to provide our athletes with a healthy environment and are able to have them follow the basic behaviors that we’ve all been asked to follow around this virus, which is appropriate social distancing and good hygiene, (wearing a) face mask, and following proper procedures in and around sport facilities and around conducting athletics, that makes a large difference for us,” Borchers said.
“When the community does not have a healthy environment, when we see a large infectivity rate, we have found that it’s more difficult and we struggle sometimes to have athletics and organized sports. So I think that is probably first and foremost, the most important thing. And I think the second thing we’ve known, and I think everyone knows is just how important athletics and sport is to our mental health and wellbeing and how important it is that we all join in together to allow sports to occur.”
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