Tag: Dr. Allen Sills

NFL will test players for COVID-19 daily for first 2 weeks of camp

The NFL will test their players for COVID-19 daily for the first two weeks of training camp to reduce the spread of the infectious virus.

The NFL will be having their players tested daily for COVID-19 for the first two weeks of training camp at minimum, following reports of at least 72 players testing positive for the virus.

Dr. Allen Sills, the league’s leading medical officer stated that at least two negative tests are mandatory before players can get tested or participate in team activities and that the positivity rate among players must fall below 5% by the end of the first two weeks to reduce the testing rate.

“There’s no finish line with health and safety and I think these protocols are very much living and breathing documents, which means they will change as we gain new knowledge about this virus, as we gain new knowledge about transmission, as we gain new knowledge about testing and there are new tests and new techniques that come online,” Sills said. “We very much anticipate that these protocols will change.”

Sills stated that reducing the risk of spreading the infection is the biggest priority around the league, so every team must take extreme precautions.

“Everything that we’re doing is centered around the concept of risk mitigation,” Sills said. “We know that we can’t eliminate risk, but we’re trying to mitigate it as much as possible for everyone. We know that this is going to be a shared responsibility.”

Sills said that this process will make the NFL environment and the people involved in it safer as a whole if everyone cooperates.

“What’s good for players and what makes players and their families safer also makes coaches, staff, and teams safer and, quite frankly, it makes our communities safer,” Sills said.

The quicker the spread of the coronavirus is mitigated, the sooner the NFL and the United States as a whole can get back to some semblance of normalcy.

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Daily tests, proximity trackers among new COVID-19 protocols for Cowboys camp

The NFL and players union agreed to protocols that will dictate the frequency of player testing as the proposed 2020 season nears.

Even attempting to play a football season during a global pandemic was always going to require a significant testing plan for players, coaches, and team personnel. That plan looks to finally be in place, just hours before Cowboys rookies were set to report to the Star in Frisco.

The NFL and NFL Players Association came to an agreement on testing protocols Monday afternoon. According to USA Today‘s Jori Epstein, “players, coaches, and designated staff who interact with them will undergo COVID-19 testing daily throughout the first two weeks of training camp.” Epstein’s report cites confirmation by league Chief Medical Officer Dr. Allen Sills.

The plan provides for daily tests for the first two weeks of camp, but specifies that testing frequency could drop if certain positivity benchmarks are achieved.

“The original plan had been to test every other day,” notes Cowboys staff writer David Helman, “but many prominent players took to social media over the weekend to question the league’s protocols.” The daily testing with an option to eventually downshift to every other day appears to be one of the compromises reached during a round of conference calls between the two sides.

Players will notably be required to test negative more than once before taking part in team activities or even entering the club’s facilities.

How team personnel move throughout their facilities while practicing and conducting official business has been left up to the individual clubs. All 32 organizations were required to submit detailed infectious disease emergency response (IDER) plans that separated personnel into tiers and laid out who could be where and when during team activities.

Teams will “require daily temperature screening, symptom monitoring, social distancing, and masks,” but Epstein points out that players will also wear “Apple Watch-like” proximity trackers to help with contact tracing when a test comes back positive.

 

“If a player tests positive but has no symptoms,” writes NFL.com columnist Judy Battista, “he can return to the facility 10 days after the initial positive test or if he receives two consecutive negative tests within five days of the initial positive test. If the player has a positive test and symptoms, he can return after at least 10 days have passed since the symptoms first appeared and at least 72 hours have passed since he last experienced symptoms.”

Despite all these safeguards and precautions, Dr. Sills emphasized that it will be up to players and staff to modify their typical behavior, both at the team facilities and away from it, to mitigate the risk of infection and minimize spread.

“We cannot test our way to safety,” Sills said.

But as of now anyway, it appears that the league can test its way to the start of training camp.

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Dr. Fauci, the NFL and the players’ union weigh in on testing protocols

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the NFL and the players’ union have weighed in on testing protocols for the coronavirus and all three seem to be at odds.

The National Football League is desperately trying to find a way to put its product on the field in 2020, however, the coronavirus pandemic seems to have a timeline of its own.

On Thursday, one of the nation’s leading medical experts – Dr. Anthony Fauci – gave his thoughts on whether or not football is likely to be played this season.

“Unless players are essentially in a bubble – insulated from the community and they are tested nearly every day – it would be very hard to see how football is able to be played this fall,” Fauci told CNN. “If there is a second wave, which is certainly a possibility and which would be complicated by the predictable flu season, football may not happen this year.”

The NFL responded shortly thereafter with a statement from its own expert, chief medical officer, Dr. Allen Sills.

 

The NFLPA was also quick to respond, with a message from the union’s medical director, Thom Mayer.

All three experts seem to agree that testing will be one of the most important factors in ensuring player safety. But just exactly how the protocols will be put in place remains a major discrepancy.

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NFL chief medical officer optimistic Texans-Chiefs kicks off 2020 season

The NFL’s chief medical officer, Dr. Allen Sills, believes the season kicks off on time, beginning with the Houston Texans at the Kansas City Chiefs.

The Houston Texans and Kansas City Chiefs appear to be on track to commence the 101st NFL season on Sept. 10 at Arrowhead Stadium.

According to Dr. Allen Sills, the NFL’s chief medical officer, via an interview with NBC Sports’ Peter King, the league doesn’t anticipate having their regular season delayed to the the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I remain very optimistic that we will play the season as scheduled,” Sills said. “None of us has a crystal ball. Three months is a long time.”

Sills also went on in his interview with King to note that the league is still hammering out its testing, which Sills referred to as a “surveillance program.” COVID-19 testing is an issue the league and the NFL Players Association is working through.

One of the biggest parts of the new normal in the NFL will be “infection control officers,” which are typically the head athletic trainers.

“We feel the Infection Control Officer is going to play an important role,” said Sills. But he wanted to be clear about this: “Everyone’s going to be responsible for a team’s environment. Everybody’s got to be conscious about wearing masks and hand-washing and social-distancing away from the facility. Everyone has a role to play. Everyone shares the risk. Testing, cleaning, separation in physical distancing — it’s not a one-person job.”

By September, there will be copious example of mass gatherings and live events that should help the NFL get a better feel for where the world is at with COVID-19. The NBA is set to return on July 31 with a 22-team format in Orlando, Fla. If that sport is able to finish its altered regular season without sustaining any infections, then it should provide more optimism that the rest of the sports world can finish its business in 2020 and provide a safe framework for the future.

NFL’s chief medical officer ‘not putting dates’ on players returning

The NFL’s chief medical officer, Dr. Allen Sills, is “not putting dates on the calendar” as far as when players will be allowed to return.

A number of NFL teams began to slowly open their facilities this week, including the Cardinals, Colts, Falcons and Cowboys. Clubs have been directed by the league to follow strict protocols as they start to open their doors and to comply with state and local governments’ directives.

The majority of employees who are resuming work are in the teams’ operational departments. Coaches, for instance, are still not permitted at the facilities.

While clearly there is some momentum in the openings, the NFL’s chief medical officer has not yet settled on a timeline for when the players can return.

“We are not putting dates on the calendar at this point,” Dr. Allen Sills said via NFL.com’s Judy Battista. Sills made his statement during a virtual owners meeting on Tuesday during which offseason planning was discussed.

Sills acknowledged that football, a contact sport, would provide a number of challenges as far as safety and social distancing are concerned.

“We fully expect we will have positive cases that will arise,” Sills said.

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