Montgomery County Public Schools has changed its COVID policy for student athletes after multiple outbreaks occurred among teams at five schools in the past two weeks.

Officials with the county’s department of health say that if a team has five or more active cases, all team activities, including practices and competitions, will be suspended for 14 days from the date of the last exposure or team activity.

The new policy also states student athletes must wear masks when they are on the sidelines and not actively playing.  This policy will immediately affect teams at five schools that have seen recent outbreaks. Chris Cram, a MCPS spokesperson, told DCist/WAMU that team activities will be rescheduled when possible.

“This new guidance is unfortunate, but necessary to mitigate the spread of the virus,” Cram said.

Multiple Sports teams, including basketball, wrestling, indoor track, and gymnastics, at the five schools, Paint Branch High School, Col. Zadok Magruder High School, Poolesville High School, James Hubert Blake High School, and Sherwood High School, are among those affected by the new policy.

“In the last week and few days there’s been a significant rise in cases throughout the whole region and we’re not immune from that in Montgomery County Public Schools.” Cram said.

The total number of MCPS student cases jumped from 299 last month to 390 this month so far, and the number of students in quarantine in December is more than 1170, according to data from MCPS.

The case counts and hospitalizations in the county and throughout the region have also increased amidst the arrival of the omicron variant. As of December 4, the county was seeing roughly 98.5 new cases per 100,000 residents a week,  nearly crossing into the “high” transmission rate of 100 new cases per 100,000 residents, according to county data. As of this weekend, at least 10% of hospital beds in the county were occupied by COVID patients, according to the data.  However, almost 82% of county residents five years and older have at least one dose of the vaccine.

Earlier this month, Paint Branch High School paused its wrestling practices and games after a total of 21 cases were reported throughout the wrestling and varsity/junior varsity boys basketball teams, according to WTOP. When the school year started, MCPS officials required all student athletes 12 years and older participating in winter and spring sports be vaccinated. The county also has a test-to-play policy which requires athletes to be tested prior to competing.

County Health Officer Dr.James Bridger told DCist/WAMU during a press conference on Wednesday that the “majority of cases among athletic teams to be breakthrough cases.” He said the county’s epidemiology team is doing further investigations into where those cases originated. “We’re also looking at whether those cases occurred in the county or in interstate play,” he said.

Bridgers added he hopes to have more data about these outbreaks soon, and the new policy could change depending on its outcome.