When meeting with teams in person, coaches are now faced with new expectations around cleaning and working with shared materials within their educational and extracurricular spaces. To help keep teams safe from COVID-19, below are some tips, recommendations, and resources that FIRST program coaches/mentors can reference. This is not an exhaustive list and should be used for guidance only. To help keep teams safe from COVID-19, teams should always be referring to their local health departments for their most current published COVID-19 guidelines and regulations.
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COVID-19 viruses can survive on surfaces from several hours to days depending on several factors. This may vary under different conditions such as surface type, relative temperature or humidity of the environment.
| Material | Virus has been detectable |
| Copper | Up to 4 hours |
| Cardboard | Up to 24 hours |
| Plastic | Up to 2-3 days |
| Stainless Steel | Up to 2-3 days |
- When possible, consider meeting outside to increase ventilation.
- When possible, open windows when weather permits to increase ventilation.
- Ask children to wash their hands before and after each meeting.
- Encourage children to greet each other using non-physical gestures.
- Remind children to maintain physical distance between each other.
- Remind all participants to follow proper mask usage.
- Advise children not to share any personal items like toys or water bottles and be sure to follow disinfecting protocols.
- There should be no sharing of food. If meals are to be eaten during the meeting, the children should bring individualized food and eating utensils from home.
- Take attendance of all attendees at every meeting to keep a record for potential contact tracing efforts.
- Make sure to include the date when the meeting took place.
- Make sure you have a list with phone/email information
- Have a plan in place for what to do if a child is or becomes sick.
- Remind children to maintain physical distance between each other.
- To limit numbers, parents will not be able to stay on-site (drop off/pick up only).
To help keep teams safe from COVID-19, teams should always be referring to their local health departments for their most current published COVID-19 guidelines and regulations.
Some Additional Resources