3:15pm: Despite the Reds’ and Pirates’ most recent test results showing no positive tests, the two teams will not play a makeup doubleheader on Monday in Cincinnati, as reported by Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Also per Mackey, Bucs skipper Derek Shelton said that “MLB has decided protocol-wise that they did not want us to play Monday.” Tomorrow will mark the third consecutive day that the two teams will have been out of action following a positive test within the Reds organization.
9:00am: The latest round of coronavirus testing for the Reds has come back negative, tweets MLB Network’s Jon Heyman. After one Cincinnati player was revealed Friday to have tested positive for COVID-19, the remainder of their weekend series with the Pirates was postponed. Fortunately, there’s no indication at this point the virus has progressed beyond that player.
There is no specific timetable on the Reds’ return to action, although Heyman notes that today’s clean round of testing sets them up for a potential resumption next week. MLB is understandably exercising plenty of caution in trying to forestall a possible large-scale outbreak. We’ve seen already in the cases of the Marlins and Cardinals how quickly the virus is capable of decimating a clubhouse.
I thought when this was originally reported that there was a significant chance the Reds test was false positive, especially since there was only one. This latest report seems to reinforce that possibility. Considering what we’ve heard about the rapid-result saliva tests MLB is using, the surprise is there haven’t been more such.
ive said this before, but it doesn’t sound too stupid…why not do multiple tests with the same sample? isnt doing more tests and taking the consensus more likely to decrease the chance of false positives? seems like a simple fix.
$
Well, for one; these tests are brand new. They are not infallible and perhaps the mechanism always return a false positive for a given sample. (i.e., like eating too many poppy seeds can test positive for opiates. A retest on the same sample won’t change the result.)
For two, there is still a nationwide shortage of the chemicals needed for these tests — the turnaround in my state is 8-10 days because of it. I don’t know how many millions MLB is spending on these tests, but it probably doesn’t cover automatic retests.
And three, who’s to say the sample wasn’t contaminated? There are probably folks working 12 hours a day and all they do every minute is handle samples and test them. Perhaps somebody didn’t sterilize properly and the sample got contaminated and retesting would provide the same result.
It might not be as simple as you think.
Do you not understand how the testing is done?
Once they use a Saliva sample, they can’t reuse it. Gonna be very general here, but the swab is dissolved in alcohol like substance, then amplified 30-50 times in a special machine, they take sample and look for the specific virus to be present after like 35 amplifications. If they don’t see it after 50 or whatever the number is, it’s considered negative. Clearly it’s not perfect
Once they do that, it’s done. Positive, negative, false positive/neg, doesn’t matter, can’t retest that one. You can do 2 tests at exactly the same time and do those reviews at same time for better chance it’s not false positive/neg, but they can’t simply re use one qtip swab for 5 tests or something
They very likely RETESTED that same person. If it was negative it would be revealed explicitly.
The tweet said ‘all reds players tested yesterday came back negative’. That isn’t written to be extremely informative. Was every reds player tested yesterday and they all came back negative… Or was a portion of the reds players tested yesterday and that portion of reds players all tested negative?
Is the original positive test included in the ‘all reds players’ or not?
I don’t think this reinforces the possibility of a false positive in the one player that tested positive. There are very few false positives, but false negatives are far more frequent, especially if taken too soon after exposure.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/if-youve-been-exposed-to-the-coronavirus
There is a lot of guessing and a lot of misinformation being provided. The facts is there have been AT LEAST 5 false positives in MLB since the beginning of July. How many false negative tests have there been in MLB?
Welcome to fighting a pandemic when the biggest resource in the world it too busy denying it exists than solving the issue
Still. You really are upset they are holding back false positives to confirm they’re false positives, even after we’ve seen like 25 contests already rescheduled from Covid. My god does someone need to die before you want caution? Guess 170,000 is no one for you. Jeez man
Good news. Hopefully another round of tests produce the same result.
It’s not too late to scrap this and move to a bubble.
Idiot.
again, just not feasible
You’re not an idiot, just not informed.
It was the players association that wouldn’t discuss a bubble. Plus doing a bubble for 60 games and the playoffs is so so much longer and harder to do then the short NBA and NHL remainders of their seasons. Plus the NBA only brought 22 of the 30 teams, and MLL has triple of their roster sizes. It’s not do-able at all
It’s nice of you to sign your comment.
Hiflew.
Nice rip hiflew. Good work – seriously, keep it up.
Clepto
ziiiing!
It’s not too late to deliver a solution.
William
In other news, six more yankee players got injured.
And they still beat the Red Sox 20 to 3.
I wear a mask timpa. But nice try!
Got filtered for my first comment, but I’d still like to know what clubhouses were “decimated.” I don’t recall hearing anyone experiencing ANY major symptoms.
So, so bored with corona-nonsense. What a joke.
E rod is out for the season with something caused by Covid.
We’ve had multiple guys with pre existing conditions get Covid. Sorry you’re not paying attention til you bury a professional athlete. You’re the joke
In the weeks leading up to the season there multiple examples of teams putting multiple players on the injured list at the same time, due to corona. The rest of the team didn’t stop working out. So why does one positive test now result in the cancellation of an entire series? I’m not trying to downplay this, but honestly trying to figure out what changed.
In November Mlb is gonna have a yuge money maker in the playoffs. So in meantime they are gonna be extra cautious so they make it to November.
No clue how owners are turning a profit on reg season if they have a balloon payroll.
Because the marlins and cardinals have showed that process was stupid and just bound to infect an entire team
Why is this hard?
OMG.
Shut it down! SHUT IT DOWN, NOW!!
We’re killing baseball players for our own privileged entertainment!
(just trying to see if hysteria is fun)
3 double headers is better than 12 for Miami. It’s the right call