The NFL’s low COVID-19 postivity rate shows vaccinations and protocols are working, the league’s chief medical officer said Tuesday.
Dr. Allen Sills said the league’s COVID-19 positivity rate is between .04 and .06 percent, Barry Wilner of the Associated Press reports. The league has conducted nearly 100,000 COVID-19 tests, an average of 1,200 a day.
As of Tuesday, 94.1 percent of players and 100 percent of team and league staff are vaccinated.
“We’re continuing to work with the players association on the goal of 100 percent vaccination,” Sills said, via Wilner. “The CDC has been in contact with us about how that is achieved, a vaccination success story, and is pointing to the NFL as a model for other parts of society.”
The Cardinals recently had a cluster of COVID-19 cases that included edge rusher Chandler Jones and head coach Kliff Kingsbury.
“Of the first seven cases in Arizona, five were different strains of the virus,” Sills said, noting that’s an induction those exposures came outside the team facility. “Definitely the impact of vaccinations, we’re not seeing the clustering or uncontrolled spread of the virus. Nor are we seeing the uncontained, unexplainable, uncontrolled spread we saw last year.”
The league is undertaking a voluntary study of antibody levels to measure and compare who was vaccinated when and which medication, and whether the person had COVID-19. Sills called it a “unique study because of size and the frequent testing.”
Players can participate, but club employees are the focus of the study.