The NFL is going to stop weekly testing fully vaccinated people in an effort to do damage control and keep their future games going on as schedule. Don't test, don't know...just goes to show how much of a joke that this media hyped COVID Omicron variant fear tactic really is. I mean, we have got to have entertainment while at the very same time restricting the Citizenry's public movements, access to events and so forth.
Seattle Times (click for full article)
https://www.seattletimes.com/sports...asymptomatic-vaccinated-players-and-staffers/
Following increase in COVID-19 cases and three postponed games, NFL reduces testing for asymptomatic vaccinated players and staffers[/b]
In moves aimed at avoiding any more disruptions to the season, the NFL announced new COVID-19 protocols Saturday that will take effect following this weekend’s games.
Maybe the most significant is that fully vaccinated players and staffers will no longer have to undergo weekly testing.
If a fully vaccinated player or staffer reports feeling symptoms, they will have to isolate immediately and be tested and will not be permitted to interact with the team until producing a negative test.[/i]
While that struck some observers as putting trust in the honor system, the NFL stated that all players and staff “will be subject to ‘stringent symptom screening’ prior to entering a team facility each day before being permitted to enter in order to ensure any symptomatic individual will be tested prior to entering.”
Under the new protocols reached in agreement with the NFL Players Association, there will also be “targeted” testing that includes “sample selection based on position group and staff cohorts.”
Unvaccinated players will still have to test daily.[/i]
The moves came after more than 130 players were placed on the COVID-19 reserve list this week, which compelled the NFL to change the schedules for three games to try to allow some of those players to become eligible to play, including the Seahawks’ game against the Rams.
That game was scheduled for Sunday at 1:25 p.m. and will now be played Tuesday at 4 p.m. with the NFL’s hope that some of the 29 players the Rams have placed on the list will be able to return by Tuesday.
The Seahawks have two players on the list — receiver Tyler Lockett and running back Alex Collins.
According to a tweet from Tom Pelissero of the NFL Network — the league’s official media arm — “the NFL believes overwhelming majority of recent cases are milder Omicron variant.”
In a statement released to the NFL Network, commissioner Roger Goodell also cited the Omicron variant as a reason for changing the league’s testing strategy.
“Medical information strongly indicates that this variant is significantly more contagious but possibly less severe than prior variants, particularly for people who are fully vaccinated and have received a booster shot,”[/i] Goodell wrote. “Our experience with the Omicron variant is fully consistent with this expectation — while more players and staff are testing positive, roughly two-thirds of those individuals are asymptomatic, most of the remaining individuals have only mild symptoms, and the virus appears to clear positive individuals more rapidly than was true with the Delta and other variants. In many respects, Omicron appears to be a very different illness from the one we first confronted in the spring of 2020.”
Players can continue to volunteer for testing at any time.
The Seahawks had been testing players twice a week — on Mondays and Wednesday.
