Vikings Announce 12 Presumptive Positive COVID-19 Tests, Could Be Lab Issue

The Vikings are among several NFL teams to see a spike in positive tests this weekend.

Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer announced Sunday morning that the team has had eight players, one coach, and three staff members with presumptive positive tests for COVID-19.

That's a massive spike in positive tests for a team that previously had none, and it is believed to be related to a league-wide emergence of false positives this weekend. The Jets reported ten false positives, the Bears had nine, and roughly a third of the league's teams have been impacted. All of the positive tests are believed to be tied to one specific BioReference lab in New Jersey.

What that means is that it seems likely these positive tests are false and are the result of an issue with the lab. Still, the Vikings are following the league's protocols and will be quarantining the 12 individuals involved. None of them will be at the team's practice on Sunday.

Zimmer said this actually creates a good trial run for testing the protocols of what the Vikings would do if they had a wave of positive tests during the actual season.

"It’s probably good that it happened now since we’re able to adjust and adapt and figure out the things if it did happen during the season and kind of what we would do from there," Zimmer said.

The Vikings will find out tomorrow if the positive tests were real or not.

"If these all turn out negative then there was a problem at the lab," he said. "Obviously if they're positive then there might be a problem with what we're doing or what other teams or doing."

Prior to Zimmer's announcement regarding the Vikings, the NFL had already released a statement addressing the news that was spreading around the league.

"Saturday's daily COVID testing returned several positives tests from each of the clubs serviced by the same laboratory in New Jersey. We are working with our testing partner, BioReference, to investigate these results, while the clubs work to confirm or rule out the positive tests. Clubs are taking immediate precautionary measures as outlined in the NFL-NFLPA's health and safety protocols to include contact tracing, isolation of individuals and temporarily adjusting the schedule, where appropriate. The other laboratories used for NFL testing have not had similar results."

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We'll continue to monitor this story, but it seems likely that these are false positive tests which will be cleared up by tomorrow.

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