The NBA and the National Basketball Players Association have reached an agreement to adjust the league’s COVID-19 protocols amidst a wave of positive tests among players and coaches, reports ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. ESPN obtained a memo stating that the NBA will increase testing and face mask use for players and staff during the holiday season.
Beginning on December 26, players and staffers – besides those who received their booster shot at least 14 days ago or those who recently recovered from the virus – will be tested for COVID-19 on game days. For most of the season, vaccinated players haven’t been tested unless they showed symptoms or were a close contact of someone who contracted the virus.
Additionally, as Wojnarowski details, players and staffers will be required to wear face masks on the bench, in their team’s workout facility, and while traveling with the team.
With so many teams shorthanded and taking advantage of the hardship provision to sign extra players, sources tell Wojnarowski that there’s been some league-wide discussion about finding an easier way to expand rosters.
The Magic added forward Ignas Brazdeikis to their injury report on Thursday night due to the health and safety protocols, making Orlando the 12th team to have at least one player currently in the protocols. A 13th team – Indiana – has its head coach, Rick Carlisle, in the protocols.
Of course, that number seems very likely to change in one direction or the other by the end of the day, since players are entering and exiting the protocols with increasing frequency this month. Lakers guard Malik Monk was the latest player to test out of the protocols on Thursday, per Wojnarowski and ESPN’s Dave McMenamin (Twitter link).
The NBA and the National Basketball Players Association have reached an agreement to adjust the league’s COVID-19 protocols amidst a wave of positive tests among players and coaches,
Again, all these vaccines and it is not working
I see Kyrie Irving hasn’t tested positive.
Because Kyrie Irving is sitting at home. He’s not around the team getting tested daily. Maybe he has tested positive. Maybe he hasn’t. We wouldn’t know unless he told us.
@Cam
Is Irving home getting soup ladled to him?
Read up on the vaccines
@mcmillankmm
Read up on what?
Everyday
Fauci says this
The Rock says that
Biden says this
Fox News says that
This guy over here says this
Rand Paul says that
It’s 24/7 of Horse Schiff
Also, Jonathon Issac is doing okay too and working his way back
SMH
Is Dr. Fauci from the one from the Sopranos or the one from Rocky Horror Picture Show?
Obviously all of the names you listed are not equivalent or even quality sources of vaccine information. Are you that lost about how to determine if vaccines are effective?
Do you take your car to the carpet store to get it repaired?
High School Research 101 – Check that your information comes from a source that is are not biased and also has expertise in the subject matter. For example, I am looking for information on vaccine efficacy to a respiratory disease, do I go to the Center for Disease Control, Fox News, or the Rock?
Read stuff from doctors and scientists. Aside from Fauci, who is both of those things, it seems you only hear the opinions of celebrities, politicians, and cable news. Go to experts. None of these sources aside from Fauci are experts.
Isaac is recovering from ACL surgery and not playing in games. He’s not around the players so he’s not getting infected obviously SMH
Lmao
Honestly, I don’t know how you aren’t embarrassed to not understand how the vaccines work after they’ve been available for so long. I know I certainly would be, but it seems you lack the capacity to be embarrassed or just don’t care enough to do the minimum to educate yourself on them. Because it would’ve taken an hour of research tops. One hour. In the span of nearly a year. Is your time that valuable that you haven’t been able to spare a single hour of it?
What do they work for? If you can get it and give it still what’s the point? These are pro athletes, they aren’t at risk
Talk to Freddie Freeman about that. Dude was NL MVP and thought it was gonna kill him.
Until everyone is vaccinated, the virus will still run rampant in its unvaccinated prey, mutating along the way so that breakthrough cases among vaccinated become more likely. The vaccine that we are using was developed for the original variant not the current one. Despite that the vaccine reduces symptoms dramatically. Also, “Vaccination reduces the risk of delta variant infection and accelerates viral clearance. ” (quoted from The Lancet link to thelancet.com). SO we can “kill” off the virus if we are all vaccinated.
Unfortunately, due to the unvaccinated, we are moving on to omicron…
Over 1000 people die of COVID in the US each day. That is equivalent to 2-3 jumbo jets crashing each day. Would you get on a plane in that world?
Get Vaccinated!
Plus the unvaccinated prevent society from truly getting back to normal. If 95%+ of all adults had the shot instead of the ~70% right now, many restrictions would be gone and certain parts of the economy could return to pre-pandemic levels (live music is a good example). Right now those sectors are still fighting to get back to normalcy.
I’m a Bucks fan too. FTD!
The tough part is getting the rest of the world vaccinated, particular the poor countries. Without that, even if we were 100% vaccinated the risk would remain.
Of course, more is always better but we’ve still got a long road ahead of us.
This should help, but maybe players should adjust their off-court behavior too. Some of this transmission is probably coming from vaccinated players living their lives as normal, which is fine during the offseason of course, but right now it’s a little risky. Us folks who have gotten the shot but aren’t pro athletes aren’t as likely to transmit the virus as these players who practice, sweat, and breathe on each other.
Before the vaccines, NBA players last year were really good about preventing breakouts by not going out partying and such, knowing the risk it represented to their team. Especially during the playoffs. Teams couldn’t afford to lose games if they were missing key players who had the virus. Guys may have to readopt those attitudes to get through this new wave.
Also, I’ve been thinking lately—unrelated to the new outbreak but maybe subconsciously I was thinking about it—that there’d be no harm in each team having 3 two-way slots. Right now it would be beneficial, but it’s a good adjustment to make long-term too.
Talk about stupid changes, I thought their goal was to get more players available, right?
All of these changes seems aimed to get more players on protocols… real puzzling, right?