Last week, we pointed that “daily testing” isn’t really daily testing, because testing doesn’t happen on game days. Moving forward, it will.
Per multiple reports, a memo issued by the league on Monday explains that daily off-site PCR testing will commence on game days in Week Six.
It’s smart, and overdue. The league’s protocols already contain multiple donut holes, due to the incubation period and the lag between sample collection and result. By not testing players on game days, the league precluded itself from learning whether someone had flipped from negative to positive between Saturday and Monday, for a Sunday game.
The downside is that, by testing players on game days, the league will have a clear paper trail of any players who test positive for the first time before game -- and who then shed virus in the locker room and on the field and sideline and the trip home.