Detroit Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford is ready to get back on the practice field after a false-positive COVID-19 test landed him on the team’s reserve list.
After receiving a positive test on Saturday, Stafford was placed on the reserve/COVID-19 list, but only three days later, the team’s offensive leader is back.
In a team statement, the Lions announced, “We have removed Matthew Stafford from the COVID-IR list and onto the Active Roster. As a result of a False-Positive test result, he was forced due to NFL/NFLPA protocols to sit out until he received two negative tests. His testing sequence for the Pre-Entry period was: negative, negative, False-Positive. The next three tests were all negative.”
“To be clear, Matthew does NOT have COVID-19 and never has had COVID-19 and the test in question was a False-Positive,” the statement continued. “Also, all of Matthew’s family have been tested and everyone is negative.”
Statement from the Detroit Lions pic.twitter.com/3C9jVHGbQV
— Detroit Lions (@Lions) August 4, 2020
Many NFL players, coaches and staff have voiced concerns about false-positives messing up the season and this will surely add to the skepticism regarding testing.
“It’s one of those things that are going to be questionable for sure,” Lions linebacker Jarrad Davis said. “Because, yeah, this might be the first one that we’ve heard about but I’m sure there’s more that are going to happen. Hopefully they come up with a better way or continue to work on the way that we’re doing it to test everybody and I’m confident that everything will work out.”
According to NFL guidelines, “Players who test positive for the novel coronavirus but are asymptomatic can return once five days have passed from their initial positive test so long as they post consecutive negative tests at least 24 hours apart. Symptomatic players who test positive for COVID-19 can return as soon as 10 days after their symptoms first appeared, provided their return is cleared by team doctors.”
The NFL season is scheduled to begin on September 10.
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