The NFL said Saturday’s daily COVID-19 testing returned several positive tests from each of the clubs, serviced by the same BioReference laboratory in New Jersey.
Some teams took precautionary measures while the positive tests were being investigated. The Cleveland Browns and Chicago Bears were two of the clubs reportedly impacted and shut down or pushed back Sunday’s practice schedule. The Bears’ nine positive tests returned were already shown to be false positives, per ESPN.
The Giants did not appear to be impacted, despite being headquartered in East Rutherford, N.J, not far from two BioReference testing facilities in Clifton and Elmwood Park. The team’s Sunday schedule remained unchanged: players would go have a walk through coming off a heavy Friday scrimmage and Saturday’s player off day.
“Saturday’s daily COVID testing returned several positive tests from each of the clubs serviced by the same laboratory in New Jersey,” the NFL said in a statement. “We are working with our testing partner, BioReference, to investigate these results, while the clubs work to confirm or rule out the positive tests.
“Clubs are taking immediate precautionary measures as outlined in the NFL-NFLPA’s health and safety protocols to include contact tracing, isolation of individuals and temporarily adjusting the schedule, where appropriate. The other laboratories used for NFL testing have not had similar results.”
The NFL’s training camp had so far been a success with limited tests returned positive. The league conducted 109,075 tests through Aug. 11 and only 0.46% of the tests administered returned positive — including all staff and personnel — with only 0.81% of players testing positive, per NFL chief medical officer Dr. Allen Sills.
___
(c)2020 New York Daily News
Visit New York Daily News at www.nydailynews.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
—-
This content is published through a licensing agreement with Acquire Media using its NewsEdge technology.
Recent Comments