With spring term on the horizon, how will sports societies cope with their new restrictions?
Johnson said a new, more contagious variant of the coronavirus, first identified in the United Kingdom, and now present in many other countries, was spreading at great speed, and immediate action was needed to slow it down.
“As I speak to you tonight, our hospitals are under more pressure from COVID than any time since the start of the pandemic,” Johnson said in a televised address to the country.
The government has set the target to immunise all over-70s, the most clinically vulnerable and front-line health and care workers by mid-February – some 13 million people – which would require around two million vaccinations a week.
The University has consequently announced that all lectures and seminars will be held online in an effort to minimise the spreading of the virus.
Such measures have halted the plans of sports societies within the University. Although club training and fixtures have been restricted, exercise is permitted if the following criteria is met:
– Outdoors in a public space, with one other from outside your household or support bubble as long as a 2m social distance is maintained
– With your household or support bubble
– Exercise should be limited to once a day
– Exercise within your local area
While there have been no complaints to date about sports memberships, Maddi Cannell, the York Sport President, told Vision that:
“I have worked on a paper for reimbursement following conversations with other SU Sport Presidents around the country, some of whom were getting requests for refunds.
“This caused me to start considering what our own requirement might be and to consequently get in touch with the University to open up a conversation surrounding not only the AU Fee but also the College Sport Membership fee on behalf of College Sport Reps who sit on the College Sport Committee.”
However, no guarantee has been provided as of yet.
York Sport Union, York Sport, and the York Sport Union and College Sport Committees are working together in order to find alternative measures to satisfy students’ lack of involvement in societies.
However, its not all doom and gloom. Elite sport, will be allowed to continue despite the introduction of these measures. In March, the Premier League was paused when a lockdown was announced and did not resume until June.