NFL’s Chief Medical Officer On COVID-19: ‘Risk Mitigation, Not Elimination, Is The Key;’ Raiders Player Tests Positive For Virus
By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
The National Football League and NFL Players Association today released COVID-19 testing results for September 20 – October 3, but it didn’t include a positive result for Las Vegas Raiders player Maurice Hurst this week.
Several published reports said Hurst tested positive for COVID-19 and was placed on the Reserve/COVID-19 list. Hurst, a defensive tackle, was not among the 10 Raiders players who were fined by the NFL for violating novel coronavirus pandemic protocols at a fundraiser in Henderson last week.
Players and staffers who test positive for COVID-19 are supposed to be immediately isolated and are not permitted access to team facilities, or have direct contact with players or personnel.
The Tennessee Titans have been the only team to suffer a COVID-19 outbreak. They did not play last weekend.
Raiders quarterback Derek Carr was asked about the impact of shifting games to different weeks. The reporter asked, “It’s looking like the Titans game might not get played this week, can you talk about moving games around? Is it tough to prepare for a game not being 100 percent sure it’ll be played?
Carr responded: “Yeah there’s a lot of stuff going on. I know for me, I just treat it like I have my weekly schedule, I have my weekly process. I got my weekly process on how I do things. I’m very much into my schedule, so I’m going to do my process. I’m going to do my weekly routine how I would normally do it, and then if things change, then you adapt. I would hate…You can’t ever think, ‘Oh maybe it’ll get pushed back’ and put something off. Or I could watch this and that. You have to make sure you stay with your process and what’s helped you have success.”
The Sports Business Daily had this interesting roundup on the Titan COVID-19 situation.
For any team like the Titans that has an outbreak or had exposure to a club with an active outbreak, more intensive protocols are mandatory for clubs to implement at their facilities.
NFL Chief Medical Officer Allen Sills, in consultation with medical experts, will determine when a club must follow the Post Exposure COVID Procedures, as well as when they are relieved of these additional steps. Let’s take a look at the results.
Monitoring Testing results for September 20 – September 26:
- 36,666 tests were administered to a total of 7,778 players and team personnel.
- 14,223 tests were administered to 2,470 players; 22,443 tests were administered to 5,308 personnel.
- There were two confirmed positive tests among players and four new confirmed positives among other personnel.
Monitoring Testing results for September 27 – October 3:
- 37,002 tests were administered to a total of 7,981 players and team personnel.
- 14,254 tests were administered to 2,480 players; 22,748 tests were administered to 5,501 personnel.
- There were 11 confirmed positive tests among players and 15 new confirmed positives among other personnel.
Total test results for the entire Monitoring Testing period to-date, Aug 1 – Oct 3:
- During Monitoring Testing from Aug 1 – Oct 3, 31 players and 53 other personnel were confirmed positive cases.
- More than 370,000 tests were administered to players and personnel during the Aug 1 – Oct 3 period.
“In the nine weeks since the beginning of training camp, we have had a number of isolated, new positive cases of COVID among players and other personnel across nearly two-thirds of NFL clubs and one outbreak among the Tennessee Titans,” Sills said in the NFL and NFLPA statement.
“We have said all along that we expect positive cases. As long as the virus is endemic in our communities, we will see new cases among our teams. Risk mitigation, not elimination, is the key,” Sills said.
“Our protocols are designed to quickly identify new cases, get individuals the care they need, and prevent further spread of the virus. It is critically important that we do not grow complacent in our rigorous application of measures proven to be impactful: always wearing face coverings, maintaining physical distancing and practicing healthy hand hygiene. This 2020 season, our common opponent is COVID – it’s all of us together versus the virus.”
Added Thom Mayer, the NFLPA’s medical director. “We encourage everyone to do their part to follow the protocols and keep each other safe.”
“The virus is still very much a threat not only to our season, but to the safety of everyone in our community,” Mayer said. “We encourage everyone to do their part to follow the protocols and keep each other safe.”
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