Covid-19 returns to postpone games in the US, but leagues still don’t talk about stopping

Faced with an alarming rise in the number of professional athletes who tested positive for coronavirus tests, which follows the trend of the general population in the United States, the NBA announced on Sunday (19) that it would postpone five games, bringing the total number to seven. of delays caused by the coronavirus so far this season.

Also on Sunday, the NHL (Ice Hockey League) announced that “due to concerns about transnational trends and given the fluid nature of federal travel restrictions,” 21 games are scheduled for between Monday (13) and Thursday. fair (16), which would pit Canadian teams against American teams, would be postponed. They must be resumed from December 27th.

And the NFL (football league) and the NFL Players Association on Saturday changed their exam protocols, the fourth setting of standards in a week.

These were just the most recent adjustments to calendars and health rules that professional leagues have adopted, rather than suspending their seasons. With a high level of vaccination among players and staff, both the NFL and the NBA (basketball league) have generally scaled down Covid-19 testing, which is in line with guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). ) from United States.

According to the CDC, vaccinated individuals do not need to be screened unless they are exposed to contagion or show symptoms, a guideline that professional leagues seem to have adopted after having previously held more frequent screenings.

In a memo sent to 32 NFL teams on Saturday, Roger Goodell, the league’s commissioner, said players would receive test kits that they could use at home to help them “identify and report possible contagion before moving to the facility of their teams”.

Vaccinated NFL players who are asymptomatic will be subjected to “strategic and targeted” screening, while players who report symptoms of contagion will be screened “on the fly”.

The NFL’s strategy for screening mirrors that of other professional sports leagues, although the NBA and NHL have instituted temporary daily screening measures for players, regardless of their vaccination status, amid the current surge in contagion fueled by the omicron variant. NBA players will pass daily screenings for two weeks starting December 26th, and NHL players will begin screenings on Saturday, and will pass daily screenings through at least January 1st.

“I wouldn’t describe the idea as suspending testing of vaccinated players,” Dr. Allen Sills, NFL vice president of medicine, said Saturday in a conversation with reporters. “We are trying to conduct exams smarter and more strategically.”

The decision to rely on symptoms reported by affected players raised new questions about whether players will report possible contagions and face the prospect of passing one or more games away from the team if they test positive.

Similar practices have worked in other sectors of society, said Dr. Amesh Adalja, senior researcher at the John Hopkins Center for Health Safety at the Bloomberg School of Public Health. Hospitals, for example, trust their professionals to respect a code of honor and generally do not conduct weekly employee exams, following CDC guidelines. Adalja said sports leagues could take other measures, such as unannounced tests or symptom assessment, to extend the rest of the tests.

“I think NFL players and staff need to be professionals and know that they don’t want to put other people at risk,” Adalja said. “If they’re sick, they shouldn’t play, but that obviously depends on the honesty of the sports people.”

The players’ union pushed for daily exams for all players, as the league demanded in 2020, and JC Tretter, its president, wrote in September 2021 in a message on the union’s website that it limits the protocol to weekly player exams. Vaccinations would allow transmission of the virus within the team’s premises for a dangerously long window.

The memo Goodell released on Saturday came after a series of changes to Covid-19 protocol adopted by the NFL in a week that saw the postponement of three of the weekend’s games, the first postponements of the season.

On Monday (13), the league registered a record of positive tests among its players, and began to require mandatory booster doses of the vaccine for employees who work in direct contact with players.

On Thursday, after more than 100 positive Covid tests among players so far this week, the league again mandated the mandatory use of masks in teams’ premises and adopted restrictions on face-to-face meetings. More than 130 players were placed on reserve lists by Covid-19 teams for the week, including 10 each for the Los Angeles Rams, Cleveland Browns and Washington Football Team.

With soaring cases threatening matches scheduled for the weekend, the NFL has also changed its policies to allow options to more quickly reactivate fully vaccinated players identified on positive tests, provided they have been asymptomatic for at least 24 hours. These players can now return from quarantine just one day after their initial positive test.

On Saturday, the NHL announced strengthened protocols that include daily screenings for all members of a team’s traveling delegations. Players and staff members are prohibited from eating in indoor restaurants and bars and are encouraged to wear masks indoors.

A joint statement by the league and its players’ union, released on Sunday, said that, after meetings with medical experts, the season will continue amid delays; so far, 39 games will have to be rescheduled. The need to suspend entire team games temporarily will continue to be made on a case-by-case basis.

Coronavirus cases have risen despite the high level of vaccination among professional sports athletes. About 95% of NFL players have been vaccinated, according to the league. This far exceeds the national average for the United States, where 72% of people over 18 have been vaccinated. But it is slightly below other sports.

In the NHL, only one player did not get vaccinated, and in the NBA the vaccination rate among players is 97%. Due to the high rate of vaccination, said Adalja, daily exams are not necessary among those vaccinated. This type of surveillance picks up “cases that are not very clinically significant” as those infected are usually asymptomatic or show very mild symptoms.

“We’re going to have Covid cases in the NFL within 20 years — they’re going to continue to happen,” Adalja said. “I think we need to think about what we’re trying to accomplish.”

Adalja anticipates that the virus will become endemic and recommends that health authorities in each arena devote their efforts to navigating a reality in which the virus will become part of everyday life. He adds that, in a situation like this, daily exams wouldn’t be valuable.

The NFL did not impose mandatory vaccinations on players, but it relaxed its restrictions and protocols on Covid-19 before the start of the season for those who do get vaccinated, lifting rules such as the use of masks and reducing the frequency of compulsory exams.

But as the number of cases soared, professional football has re-imposed many of the measures taken in 2020 to help the league finish its regular season and post-season on schedule; the only difference is the mandatory daily exams.