It’s hard to believe it’s only taken a week for three area high school teams to be placed into a COVID-19 quarantine.

First, it was the Frewsburg basketball team last week, followed by Brocton and Southwestern late last week because Brocton and Southwestern played Frewsburg last week. The quarantines will make it difficult to play any sort of real season, though we note any games are better than no games.

Even more importantly, as The Post-Journal reported this week, is the fact that no one in Brocton or Southwestern has tested positive thus far for COVID-19.

It looks as if COVID-19, or its myriad of variations, is going to be around for a while. Much like the flu, there will be new strains and variations, and the best we can do is to get the vaccines each year and hope the vaccines provide protection against the circulating virus.

Because COVID isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, it’s important to know how the virus spreads. That’s why the quarantines of Southwestern and Brocton’s basketball teams is important to watch.

Some will look at the quarantines and say they are a reason not to play. We disagree. We believe that these situations probably happened due to possible COVID infections happening prior to games starting to be played and then quarantines were needed to prevent future spread. COVID does not appear to have spread as a result of games being played.

High school athletics is an important part of the high school experience for many students, and as long as COVID-19 isn’t being spread then the games should continue — as long as they can continue safely.