League could become trend-setter for COVID-19 testing policies

The NFL’s decision to reduce COVID-19 testing for asymptomatic, vaccinated players could signal a trend for pro sports leagues and provide an example for society to follow heading into 2022.

Despite a rising number of positive cases that forced three games to be rescheduled over the weekend, the NFL, in cooperation with the players’ union, agreed on Saturday

to scale back testing for vaccinated players. The move aligns with guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC recommends “diagnostic testing” only for symptomatic or close-contact vaccinated people, and “screening tests” only for unvaccinated people.

The NFL previously required vaccinated players to get tested weekly before amending the protocols. The NFLPA had advocated for daily testing for vaccinated players but eventually agreed to “target” testing.

The NBA didn’t require vaccinated players to get tested during the season but revised its policy to increase testing for a twoweek period starting Dec. 26.

The NHL tested players every third day but returned to daily testing through at least Jan. 7.

“I think the NFL is actually going to be a really interesting and I think really safe real-world experiment on what our new normal is likely going to look like,” Dr. Vin Gupta, a pulmonologist and professor at the University of Washington, said in an interview with the AP. “And, it’s safe to say that the NFL is obviously a large vaccine bubble, sans a few high-profile exceptions.

“We can’t continue the status quo, ad infinitum, where we are testing regularly people that are otherwise healthy, asymptomatic, triple-vaccinated, just to detect the asymptomatic individual who might be positive ... because then you’re going to quarantine that individual who might be asymptomatic or having mild symptoms, who is triple-vaccinated, who might for a small period of time, be infectious to others who presumably are also vaccinated.”

Almost 95% of NFL players and nearly all coaching staffs are vaccinated.

Gupta, an informal consultant for the Seattle Seahawks on COVID-19 issues and an adviser for baseball’s Seattle Mariners, says the NFL is “ahead of the curve” with target and voluntary testing.

“I think they’re able to do things that the rest of the country is unable to do because they have a vaccine bubble, and they can control things to a certain degree that we can’t control across the public at large, and so it’s an interesting experiment,” Gupta said. “We have to build policies and procedures and case management protocols around positive tests that make sense, given our reality.”