NFL teams receive 77 false positive coronavirus tests: report
The football teams' practices were interrupted Sunday after COVID-19 tests involving 11 squads came back positive. Their follow-up tests were found negative.
A new report says that the company responsible for the NFL’s coronavirus testing program may have provided the league’s teams with false positive results.
Team practices were interrupted on Sunday after 77 tests involving 11 teams were found positive. The individuals who tested positive took a second test which came back negative.
Among teams reporting false positives were the Minnesota Vikings, who said they had 12; the New York Jets claimed 10, and the Chicago Bears had nine.
“Definitely probably better that this happened now than three weeks from now,” said Buffalo Bills general manager Brandon Beane, whose club had some of those positive results. “But it seems like every few weeks, or even every week, something’s going on. Who knows what the next curveball will be?”
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The report in The Washington Post said that a written statement from BioReference Laboratories in New Jersey claimed that the false-positive results were “caused by an isolated contamination during test preparation.”
Jon R. Cohen, the company’s executive chairman, said, “subsequent testing has indicated that the issue has been resolved,” and added, “All individuals impacted have been confirmed negative and informed.”
NFL players, coaches and other team staff members will be tested for COVID-19 daily until at least Sept. 5. BioReference handles all of the league’s testing at five different facilities around the country.
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The NFL had previously touted its low rate of positive tests. Less than 1 percent of personnel and players had tested positive before Sunday.
The league revised its testing procedures after Detroit Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford had a false positive test.
“We and others are clearly learning that not every single positive test means a new case of COVID infection,” Allen Sills, the NFL’s chief medical officer, said in a conference call with reporters earlier this month.
Under the revised protocols, a positive coronavirus test by an asymptomatic individual with no known history of infection with the virus would be followed by two confirmatory tests taken on the day after the positive test result is received.
The NFL season is set to begin Sept. 10 with play in home stadiums. According to reports, fans will be allowed to attend games in a diminished capacity and wearing masks.
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