NFL investigating faulty lab outcomes
The NFL hit its first snag in coronavirus testing. Fortunately, the end result was more negative COVID-19 testing.
Saturday’s round of testing in the NFL produced a significant increase in positive tests, but it appears most, if not all of them, were false positives from the same laboratory in New Jersey.
The NFL had 77 positive COVID-19 tests from 11 teams re-examined by a New Jersey lab after false positives, and all those tests came back negative. The league asked the New Jersey lab BioReference to investigate the results, and those 77 tests are being retested once more to make sure they were false positives.
It raised a major issue: What if this was a Sunday in September? Any player who tests positive must have two negative tests before returning to practice, even if the positive test is found to be false.
“My question immediately would be, if you realize it’s a lab issue, would a point-of-care test on the game site — if it was negative — would that allow the player to play?” Bills general manager Brandon Beane said. “And I don’t have that answer, but that’s the question that we’ll have to see how the league would respond to that.
“[It’s] probably better that this happened now than three weeks from now.”
Beane said at least 10 teams were impacted by inconsistent testing on Sunday. The Jets had 10 false-positive tests and the Giants had staff members test positive. The Bears had nine players/ staff members test positive, but later confirmed all of those to be false positives. They moved practice back from the morning until 1:30 p.m. on Sunday.
The Browns initially canceled their Sunday practice out of caution after they had several positive test results and closed their practice facility while it underwent a deep cleaning and disinfectant process. But later in the day, they reopened the facility and held practice, since the players, coaches and staff members who tested positive received a negative test on Sunday, “which is consistent with the irregularities across the league from multiple teams,” the Browns said in a statement.
The Bills also moved their Sunday workout back while needing to hold out some players, while the Steelers had six players miss practice Saturday to adhere to protocol, but all were back in team meetings on Sunday. The Vikings had eight players, one coach and three staff members with apparent false-positive tests, coach Mike Zimmer said, and none of them were able to practice on Sunday. Quarterback Josh Allen was one of six Bills players who received a false positive, according to ESPN, forcing him out of Sunday’s practice. The Patriots, Lions and Packers were also impacted at a lesser extent.
“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. ”