The Florida Gators’ game against LSU is up in the air Saturday as the football program remains on pause after a string of positive COVID-19.
Florida tests weekly on Sunday, following the game against the Aggies some of the staff noticed that players were exhibiting flu-like symptoms so the team scheduled another test on Monday. Sunday’s test showed five additional players to be COVID positive and Monday’s results came back with a much higher number, causing Florida to put all football activity on hold. Dan Mullen added that two assistant coaches tested positive for COVID-19. Both coaches are symptomatic. Mullen tested negative.
“I think our medical staff has done a tremendous job since we reported back in July putting safety protocols in place with an abundance of caution within our program,” Mullen said on the SEC teleconference Wednesday. “Through the month of August and September, we only had one positive test. Talking to some of my peers around college football I think we’re still on the very low number of positive tests. What we did is our medical people, we saw a spike with positive tests on Sunday’s test and a couple of guys showing not just COVID symptoms but cold symptoms so we immediately started testing guys for both the flu and COVID. The only protocol we have changed was instead of doing our conference Sunday-Tuesday-Thursday testing we’ve gone to everyday testing. So we’ve tested now … today was our fourth consecutive day of testing.”
Where does that leave Florida and their game against LSU this Saturday?
Up in the air.
The SEC has a rule that a game can be postponed if a team falls below 53 eligible scholarship players. That has happened already this week with Missouri and Vanderbilt postponing their game Saturday until December 12. Vanderbilt head coach Derrick Mason said his team’s available player count is only in the “high 40s” at the moment.
Additionally, with Florida’s program being on pause will make it difficult for the Gators to prepare for LSU this week. Florida practices on Monday but did not practice Tuesday and will not resume any football activity until they get results back from Wednesday mornings testing. Florida is fortunate to have a great relationship and resource in UF Health to be able to turn these tests around quickly.
The football team is using PCR testing, the nose swab test that we have unfortunately become all to accustomed to in 2020. According to the University of Sussex senior lecturer Dr. Edward Wright this type of testing: “detect the genetic information of the virus, the RNA. That’s only possible if the virus is there and someone is actively infected.”
According to the SEC testing protocol, many of Florida’s initial positive tests could be shown to be a false positive. The SEC mandate is that if a player or coach tests positive and then follows that up with two subsequent negative tests that the initial positive is deemed a false positive and that player or coach is cleared. Florida’s hope is that by testing every day this week they will find that some of their positive tests will prove to be false positives. Studies have shown that PCR testing can show a false positive around 30% of the time.
But time is running out to make that call.
“I would think that would come today (Wednesday). To be honest with you it’s hard for me to speculate until we get the test results back for today as to where we’re at,” Mullen said. “I would hate to lead anyone on or speculate on that. I would think today, by today, for everybody involved that we would have some more answers.”