The Cleveland Browns have canceled Sunday’s practice because of COVID-19 positive results.
Reportedly, the Browns are among several NFL teams to cancel today’s practice.
The issue is that “several” positive COVID-19 results were discovered in Saturday’s testing.
Multiple NFL teams are believed to be affected by this; all apparently use the same testing laboratory in New Jersey.
The NFL released the following statement:
“Saturday’s daily COVID testing returned several positives tests from each of the clubs serviced by the same laboratory in New Jersey. We are working with our testing partner, BioReference, to investigate these results, while the clubs work to confirm or rule out the positive tests. Clubs are taking immediate precautionary measures as outlined in the NFL-NFLPA’s health and safety protocols to include contact tracing, isolation of individuals and temporarily adjusting the schedule, where appropriate. The other laboratories used for NFL testing have not had similar results.”
The NFL has conducted well over 100,000 COVID-19 tests since camp began with a positivity rate that's a fraction of 1% and dropping. A sudden flood of positives from different testing sites, all processed by the same lab, raises a red flag. https://t.co/UOuBGzL4LR
— Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) August 23, 2020
Besides the Browns, the Chicago Bears have also been impacted by these positive results.
While it is believed all teams use BioReference tests, the tests/samples are shipped to different laboratories for evaluation.
It is not clear what other teams are involved.
The Washington Football Team also uses BioReference for their COVID testing. They were mentioned in the NFL statement regarding the Bears false positive COVID tests. All NFL teams use this company.
— Chip Brierre (@Chip_Brierre) August 23, 2020
At this point, the NFL is investigating the positive results.
This is a breaking news story so more information will be released as it becomes available.
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