Calgary curling bubble remains intact: officials
COVID-19 test results revealed to be `false positives' ahead of next event
Curling officials consider the integrity of the Calgary bubble to still be intact, even after the weekend's COVID-19 concerns that threatened the conclusion of the world men's curling championship at Winsport.
That's because a cohort of health care officials are now calling the four test results “false positives” after reviewing the safety scare.
And the good news comes just hours ahead of the next event in the bubble, the 2021 Humpty's Champions Cup, which — in the face of the coronavirus concerns — has now been delayed a day to open Thursday at Markin Macphail Centre.
“After extensive reviews conducted with Alberta Health, the testing facilities, event medical officers and an expert in infectious disease, four positive tests for COVID-19 that put the world men's curling championship on hold for a day are now considered `false positives' resulting from potentially contaminated samples,” said Curling Canada in a release late Monday afternoon. “The four athletes, who cannot be identified, were tested on Friday as part of exit testing as they were preparing to leave upon the conclusion of the championship. Three of them have since been retested twice, and one athlete who was participating in Sunday's playoffs has been retested three times, and all tested negative each time.”
Every athlete in the bubble, along with event officials deemed to be in close contact with the four athletes who tested positive, underwent testing Saturday, and all results came back negative.
On Sunday's final day of the worlds, curlers participating in the playoffs were tested before and after each of their games — and again, all tests came up negative.
As well, all staff working in the hotel hosting the bubble residents were tested Sunday — and all tested negative.
All of the tests were PCR throat swabs, which is considered the gold standard for COVID-19 testing.
“There were four positive tests (Friday) of the teams departing (the bubble) and all four of those people tested negative (Saturday),” said United States skip John Shuster over the weekend. “All four, not one, four. There's a chance the bubble didn't break, that the lab had a bad day and somehow, some way, four tests came back as positives.” He was right.
“It was very complicated,” Shuster continued. “It looked like we were being selfish and trying to get a player (third Chris Plys) on our team, who had tested positive and then tested negative, onto the ice. The fact of the matter is everybody who tested positive on Friday, tested negative on Saturday. So were any of them really positive? Did the bubble actually break?
“It wasn't like we were fighting to be able to get somebody that we thought, at all, was a risk, out on the ice. The fact that everybody's test results came back negative, we thought, was pretty much evidence that these might not have been real positives.”
The four initial “positive” results jeopardized not only the end of the worlds but the entire bubble itself, throwing into doubt the status of the three remaining curling events on the Calgary schedule: the Champions Cup (April 15-19), the Princess Auto Players' Championship (April 20-25) — both part of the Pinty's Grand Slam of Curling calendar — and the world women's curling championship (April 30-May 9).
But with Monday's announcement comes the proclamation that the bubble remains intact.
“Very rarely, there are occurrences through sampling or testing processes when samples may become contaminated and a false positive may result,” said Curling Canada in the statement. “Following investigation over the weekend, it appears that this may have occurred in this case and followup testing was undertaken.
“The change allows international athletes who were considered close contacts — and who would have had to remain in isolation in Calgary for 14 days — will now be able to depart Calgary. The testing process will continue to be reviewed with guidance from Alberta Health, event medical officers as well as the testing facility.”
The Champions Cup now begins Thursday (noon, Sportsnet West) and runs through Monday, when the men's and women's finals cap the spiel. Dates of the Players' Championship have not been affected, while will follow immediately with the start next Tuesday as originally planned.