But Tall Blacks and former Highlanders team doctor Hamish Osborne said there were risks involved in rushing back too soon without paying close attention to your health.
The Highlanders were forced to pull out of last week’s game against Moana Pasifika because of a Covid-19 outbreak in the camp.
But the franchise has named a full-strength side for today’s game against the Blues.
A New Zealand Rugby spokesman said its return-to-play protocols are ‘‘doctor-led’’ and ‘‘individualised’’ for each player, but also acknowledged it was ‘‘an area of evolving knowledge in the global medical community’’.
Osborne, who was the Highlanders team doctor in 2012, was confident the Highlanders’ players would be receiving the best medical advice and no-one would be put at risk.
While managing the effects of Covid-19 was new, he said, managing the impact of a viral illness was not.
‘‘We had the neck check rule,’’ he said.
‘‘If you had a viral illness and symptoms below your neck such as muscle pains and fever, like when you have a good cold or a flu, then you shouldn’t exercise hard.
‘‘One of the major reasons for that is one of the viruses called Coxsackie B virus was known to cause myocarditis, which is a heart condition that can happen also with Covid.
‘‘So the rules that have been developed around Covid aren’t actually too different from the way we’ve previously treated a virus.
‘‘You have to really rest . . . rather than exercising and diverting energy away from your immune system.
‘‘A very small number of people will also get trouble with their heart or lungs and other organs as a result of Covid.’’
Osborne said fitness was an excellent bulwark against further health complications.
The latest advice, he said, was to rest for 10 days to allow the virus to run its course and to be symptom-free for another seven days ‘‘before returning to sport’’.
That is 17 days total, but Osborne said that advice was aimed at the general population.
The Highlanders are much fitter and have access to a team doctor.
‘‘It is actually pretty unlikely, in a highly vaccinated and highly fit group, that there would be heart problems,’’ he said.
‘‘The guys with symptoms would generally being doing really poorly.
‘‘They’d have really bad lung symptoms and have chest pain and have lethargy over and above just being tired.’’
It was unlikely those symptoms could go unnoticed in a high performance environment, Osborne said.
