The league will require boosters for coaches and some team personnel after a single-day high in positive tests among players. But the players’ union has argued that daily testing should resume.
After a spike in positive tests for the coronavirus among players this week, the N.F.L. said in a memo that it would mandate booster shots for team staff members who work most closely with players. Even with a vaccination rate among players that is over 94 percent, more coronavirus cases have been reported this season in the N.F.L. compared with last year, according to a review of league data by The New York Times. The sense of urgency escalated Monday, when 37 players tested positive, the highest single-day total since the start of the pandemic. The N.F.L. said the players’ positive tests were being driven by community spread, though the number of coronavirus cases across the United States, while rising, is still below 2020 levels. According to N.F.L. data,360 players and team staff members tested positive from August to mid-November, a 33 percent increase compared with the 270 cases detected over the same time in 2020. There have also been high-profile positives, from Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, the league’s reigning most valuable player, who misled interviewers about his vaccination status and was fined in November for not following virus protocols; and Tampa Bay Buccaneers receiver Antonio Brown, who in December was suspended by the league for presenting a fake vaccination record. In its memo to all 32 teams sent on Monday, the N.F.L. ordered coaches and team employees who work directly with players to receive booster shots by Dec.27 or be relegated to noncontact roles “to ensure that we continue to reduce risk of transmission and allow us to complete the N.F.L. season safely during the pandemic.” But the N.F.L. Players Association said the rise in cases was cause to return to daily testing for everyone, regardless of vaccination status. Fully inoculated players and team staff members are now tested once a week, and more if they are deemed a close contact or show symptoms. By contrast, unvaccinated players are required to test daily and restricted in when they can use training rooms, how they are allowed to travel to games and the size of the groups in which they can congregate while away from the team. In the 2020 season, all players and essential personnel were tested every day, a part of the safety regimen N.
