The NFL and the NFL Players’ Association have agreed to suspend all Covid-19 protocols, effective immediately, returning teams and players to pre-pandemic operations for the first time since March 2020. The off-season NFL is the first of its kind. The major professional sports leagues of the United States to suspend their coronavirus policies.
Players and team members will no longer be required to wear masks in the facilities, adhere to social distancing measures or restrict access to teambuilding based on vaccination or position, according to a note sent to all 32 teams on Wednesday, although each team will have to comply with local regulations governing mask mandates.
The teams are expected to provide an area where PCR tests can be conducted on site for anyone who reports coronavirus symptoms on their own, but there will be no mandatory testing rhythm. Those who test positive will need to be isolated for five days, according to current recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The memorandum cites “encouraging trends” regarding the prevalence and severity of Covid-19 cases, evolving CDC guidelines and changes in state laws as reasons for the change.
The number of new cases and hospitalizations fell sharply from a peak across the country in January. The NFL said in a note that it would work with the Players’ Union and medical experts to monitor whether the protocols should be re-imposed in full or in part.
Zachary Beanie, a sports epidemiologist at Oxford College at Emory University in Georgia, said the league’s decision was largely in line with revised CDC guidelines, although he added that federal agency guidelines still support the use of indoor masks in Georgia. high risk areas.
A PGA Tour spokesman said the track would return next week before the pandemic access to players’ facilities, including the locker room, dining room and fitness area. The tour stopped testing last summer for players and tubs, unless they were symptomatic, but there was still limited access to the mostly indoor facilities. The NBA and NHL are among the leagues that eased but did not eliminate their protocols in January.
The NFL had an increase in cases during the rise of the Omicron variant in the United States, with more than 1,200 positive tests recorded among players and staff from December 12 to January 8. But the league did not report any positive tests between the playoff games of the division round and the Super Bowl. In the last weeks of the 2021 season, the league stopped testing asymptomatic players, regardless of vaccinated status.
Nearly 95 percent of the players and nearly 100 percent of the team’s staff have been vaccinated, according to the NFL. Last month, the league said only about 10 percent of players had been boosted, but that number may have increased since the end of the season.