The Ravens are a month away from the kick off against the Cleveland Browns at M&T Bank Stadium. They are more than two weeks into the “start” of training camp when players started reporting at the Under Armor Performance Center.
There is still a long way to go and full-team practices starting on Monday will be another hurdle. But so far, the responses from the NFL and Ravens and COVID-19 mitigation protocols have been a success, encouraging the season to start on time and hoping it can end as well.
According to Dr. Allen Sills, the NFL’s Chief Medical Officer, the league has an accuracy rate of 0.46% among all players, coaches and staff members who are tested, and 109,075 COVID-19 tests have been administered. The player’s positivity rate was 0.81%.
By comparison, the positivity rate in Maryland on August 12 was 5.7%, and has been hovering that mark (below 6%) since June 18. Maryland is in the bottom half of states across the nation.
On Wednesday, Ravens Head Team Physician Dr. Andrew Tucker, with MedStar Health, shared a video call with reporters to discuss the treatment of the COVID-19 pandemic team, and shared insights into how the process is gone and left worries.
“I thought I had seen it all, but I had not seen it all this year,” said Tucker, who has been the Ravens’ lead team since its inception in 1996.
Here are some of the biggest takeaways from Tucker’s media session:
The Ravens are doing well.
While the team will not issue specifications on positive testing, Tucker said, “Fortunately, our situation, like most other situations in the league, has been extremely encouraging and reassuring.
“It’s hard to describe the efforts that have gone into it [this] from the side of the players, from the side of the league, from the side of the club, from the medical staff. All the different areas of this building are affected by this whole process. It’s an extraordinary, extraordinary attempt to get us where we are today, which is on track for hopefully a game in about a month.
“I tell people, ‘I think we’ll start, hope we’ll end.'”
There has been an enormous investment.
“We certainly accept the point that risk cannot be eliminated, but we can do a lot to reduce exposure,” Tucker said.
Players, coaches and any staff who come close by have been checked every day for the past two weeks. The Ravens mostly use tests that yield results in a day and can also administer tests with a “fair amount of accuracy” that produce a result within half an hour.
Before they are allowed in the Under Armor Performance Center, there is also a daily survey and temperature check. Each location is on display, with a massive expansion of the team’s cafeteria under the most notable changes.
But one of the more interesting technological pieces the Ravens have used is an IQVIA proximity device that everyone follows and beeps when they are within six feet of other people.
If someone comes down with symptoms in the Under Under Armor Performance Center, has exposure to someone who does, or tests positive for the disease, then the Ravens can call IQVIA to determine who was within six feet of that person. hat and how long. It is a scientific way to contract traces and prevent outbreaks. Tucker said the entire process takes about 15-20 minutes to map.
“It’s really great technology,” Tucker said.
“It ends up being a dog train collar, if you will, because I know when I’m not doing it right now and I ran people around,” said defensive coordinator Wink Martindale. “If I go home, even with my wife, I’ll step back from her. You just know what six feet is now.”
Tucker claims that testing does not prevent the spread of the virus. He cited handwashing, mask-wearing and social distancing from the “blocking and approach to infectious disease prevention” and said a lot of time has been spent emphasizing that to players.
Daily tests will continue.
With a positivity rate below 5%, it was believed that testing persons of Tier 1 and 2 (players, coaches and staff nearby) would move to every other day. However, the NFL and NFLPA reached an agreement on Wednesday to extend daily testing until Sept. 5.
