Advertisement - scroll for more content
Shams Charania: Sources: The NBA is adopting CDC guidance of five-day isolation exit for coronavirus-positive individuals — outside of team environment. For return to team activities, players must isolate for six days and meet testing requirements, or register two negative tests. After five-day isolation, positive players who are masked can now return to their team’s home market via commercial flight, interact in person with individuals in community, and enter indoor settings/establishments that are not the facility.
Anthony Chiang: Alonzo Mourning says on Instagram that he also recently tested positive for COVID-19. "I have been following the CDC guidelines and have quarantined," Mourning wrote.
Brian Lewis: Asked Steve Nash if the new #CDC guidelines and #NBA-NBPA reductions in quarantine times will impact any of the #Nets currently in protocol. "I don't know the answer to that...I haven't really dug in (to who's) grandfathered in or whatever that case may be."
Mike Vorkunov: NBA just implemented new protocol where players/coaches can clear isolation 6 days after a positive COVID test. CDC just announced people can leave quarantine after 5. CDC director told the AP they want to "safely continue to keep society functioning while following the science”
The decision to shorten the quarantine to six days, sources said, is based upon expert research and data -- including the league's own -- that shows no one with a cycle threshold (CT) over 35 has shown to be infectious again after five or six days, sources said. CT measures how many times a test has to cycle to find the virus in an individual. For example, a 35 CT is fainter than a 20 CT. The NBA and NBPA has relied on data from its own infectious disease experts, the CDC and models and research in the United Kingdom.
Advertisement
Cases, hospitalizations and deaths have risen 3%, 8% and 4% from a week ago, according the CDC. But the overwhelming majority of NBA players who have had COVID are asymptomatic with a few experiencing mild symptoms, according to a person familiar with the cases. The person requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the situation.
The NBA and NBPA agreed to increased testing around Thanksgiving Day, and the need to ramp up the testing appears evident entering Christmas and the New Years' holidays. The league has a 97 percent vaccination rate among players, and 60 percent of players — and rising — have taken the booster shot. The NBA's first known player case of the Omicron variant was discovered in a recent positive COVID-19 test, sources said. The CDC estimates the new variant is now three percent of U.S. cases.
The COVID-19 vaccine, including Pfizer’s, was proven safe and effective through extensive clinical trials. Long-term side effects are “extremely unlikely,” according to the CDC. But Stockton claimed he’s certain the vaccines are harmful. “I can see it on the Internet,” he said. “And I know people. So indisputable.”
“My back really started hurting bad,” Goodwin recalled. “Then, I’m like, ‘OK. I need to go to the doctor. That’s when I found out I had blood clots. That all within the span of a month.” Goodwin then left nothing up to the imagination when he revealed what he believed caused the health issues. “I was fine until then,” Goodwin said. “I was fine up until I took the vaccine, I was fine.” Blood clots have been reported as rare side effects of Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen COVID-19 vaccine, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
Advertisement
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: According to the COVID Race Tracker, at least 73,462 Blacks have died in the U.S. from COVID-19. The CDC reports that Black people are 2.8 times more likely to become hospitalized by the virus and 2 times more likely to die from the disease compared to Whites and Non-Hispanics. To put it simply, if COVID was a racist cop choking out a Black person on the street, would you lift your voice in protest? Or would you say, “It’s his choice. He didn’t have to leave his home to go for a jog or grocery shop.”
Shams Charania: Fully-vaccinated NBA head coaches are no longer required to wear facemasks when coaching games, sources tell @TheAthletic @Stadium. This is in light of vaccination rates among coaches and recent CDC guidance.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said that starting Wednesday the state will adopt CDC guidance letting vaccinated people mostly dispense with masks and social distancing, allowing the Knicks and Nets to offer fully-vaccinated fan sections at the NBA playoffs in the city’s biggest reopening bid since the pandemic hit.
NetsDaily: Nets have a special entrance for the fully vaccinated. There on Saturday. Very efficient. I was asked twice for my CDC vaccination card before I was asked for my ticket. So Barclays should be able to ramp up following @NYGovCuomo announcement today.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement