Poe the Raven
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- Mar 16, 2019
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Ravens receiver Dez Bryant had a question to ask after he abruptly was scratched from Tuesday night’s game against the Cowboys due to a positive COVID-19 test: “Since I tested positive for Covid before the game does the game stop or go on?”
We asked the NFL to explain why the game went on. Here’s the response, from league spokesman Brian McCarthy.
“Contact tracing was conducted from yesterday and today using the contact tracing device and the standard interviews,” McCarthy said via email. “There were no high-risk contacts identified.”
This presumably means that Dez did a good job of keeping his distance from teammates and coaches at the stadium before he learned of his positive result.
“This is a scenario that had been contemplated during the development of the protocols and one the league, clubs and NFLPA planned for,” McCarty added. “The protocols worked.”
McCarthy confirmed that Bryant’s daily PCR sample returned an inconclusive result. He then was given an on-site PCR test, which showed that Bryant was positive.
As previously mentioned, the proximity of the BioReference Laboratories Maryland facility to Baltimore resulted in Bryant and the team learning of the inconclusive PCR result early Tuesday evening. If the closest BioReference lab were farther away, Bryant could be playing right now.