Long Headline The NFL receives silver lining in unexpected turn of events with 77 false positive virus tests.
The National Football League is receiving a bit of good news this week with more than 70 false positive tests from 11 different teams. With the contact sport in full swing professionally, the NFL has administered more than 58,000 tests between August 12-20 with only six positive tests according to Yahoo Sports.
The NFL had received news of positive tests over the weekend, only to be rein formed of the false positive due to a lab error in New Jersey. The new results come only days before games are expected to start. With a total of 77 false positive test results, many players are able to have a sigh of relief today. A result as such has been expected since rapid testing in excessive amounts has been taking place. Officials have speculated something to this magnitude would happen, giving space to correct error before the season starts.
“This has been a tremendous learning opportunity for us,” Dr. Allen Sillis, NFL Chief medical officer said in a statement, “We said all along that we’re going to learn a great deal as we move through this protocol, because we’re going to learn along the way, and we’ve seen that happen already.”
Quarterback Josh Allen of the Bills is one player who received a false positive, causing him to miss Wednesday’s practice. In a comment to the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle saying, “It’s nothing you want to hear, Allen said, “It sucks that I was kind of the guinea pig and whatnot, and part of that process, but I’m glad it wasn’t then, I’m glad it was now and we’re able to kid of move past it.
The Bills had to reschedule their schedule due to the COVID-19 scare of the team. Other teams have also had to make up a new routine with missing players, cause valuable plays and technique to be missed at practice. Teams that were affected the most from the false positive tests were the Minnesota Vikings, with 12, the New York Jets, with 10, and the Chicago Bears, with nine cases.
BioReference, which was hired by the NFL to conduct all of its testing for the league, contracts five labs to process the tests for players. The New Jersey lab is the only one to report false positive tests.
BioReference states, “On August 22, BioReference Laboratories reported an elevated number of positive Covid-19 PCR test results for the NFL players and personnel at multiple clubs. The NFL immediately took necessary actions to ensure the safety of the players and personnel.”
BioReference continues.
“Our investigation indicated that these were most likely false positive results, caused by an isolated contamination during test preparation in the New Jersey laboratory. Reagents, analyzers and staff were all ruled out as possible causes and subsequent testing has indicated that the issue has been resolved. All individuals impacted have been confirmed negative and informed.”
No word if the league will rerun tests on teams entirely, in addition to their scheduled testing.
