Success, but not yet 100 percent: “NFL says player vaccination rate at 93%”


… moving in the right direction


According to information released on Thursday, the National Football League’s mission of having everyone inoculated against Covid before opening day is more toward reality. There are still holdouts, but with cutoffs coming shortly, some of those may find themselves filing for unemployment next week. 


In addition, the league is proposing weekly Covid tests even for those who have been vaccinated. 


Good news for the league


Despite some teams still being problematic with 200 remaining unvaccinated, the fact that teams will have to forfeit games if they cannot play on a particular date is having some success,


The NFL has reached a vaccination rate of nearly 93 percent among its players and above 99 percent among staff members, according to NFL Chief Medical Officer Allen Sills, who spoke Thursday on a media teleconference after clubs had been collectively briefed on the league's latest findings on COVID-19.

According to Sills, there were 68 positive results among 7,190 tests for the virus between Aug. 1 to Aug. 21, for a positivity rate of 0.95 percent. Vaccinated players tested positive at a rate of 0.3 percent, while unvaccinated players tested positive at a rate seven times higher (2.2 percent), Sills added.

"I feel we are in a much better place than we were last year at this time (because) we have a much more complete understanding of this virus and its transmission, and the testing and identification of it," Sills said.


NFL general counsel Larry Ferazani said the league has proposed to the NFL Players Association that vaccinated players be tested once a week rather than biweekly, per NFL Network's Tom Pelissero. The union's preference is for daily testing. Ferazani added that the NFL has been pushing for mandatory vaccinations for players. About 200 players league-wide remain unvaccinated.


Chase Goodbread, “NFL says player vaccination rate at 93%; weekly testing 

for fully vaccinated players proposed,” NFL.com, August 26, 2021


Delta Variant is the problem


The league was clear about the dangers of what they were facing,


Nearly all positive cases in the NFL have been the virus' Delta variant, and Sills noted that vaccinated individuals testing positive have largely experienced milder symptoms with shorter duration.


"Our challenge right now, and something we discussed with the ownership, is certainly that we are in a major surge," Sills said. "It is no secret … what the impact of the Delta variant is having. It is a very different disease in many ways. Different in the symptom profile it causes, particularly in vaccinated individuals. Different in its transmissibility and its spread. But despite those differences, we know that the mitigation measures are the same."


NFL chief football administrative officer Dawn Aponte said while there isn't a vaccine mandate for officials, they are unionized and must follow similar protocols to players based on their vaccination status.


Chase Goodbread, NFL.com, August 26, 2021


Fear drives this


The reality is that most of the success in this is being driven by fear. Fear of losing. Fear of losing a career. Fear of losing a large paycheck. 


If only the rest of the country would experience this fear. 

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