Here’s a look inside COVID-19 testing procedures for UW Huskies athletics
When Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott announced the conference’s COVID-19 testing initiative in early September, he called the partnership with Quidel Corp. “groundbreaking.”
Thanks to Quidel providing daily antigen testing for close-contact sports, the Pac-12 was able to schedule a seven-game football season starting Nov. 7 and allow basketball to open with the rest of the country at the end of November.
By the start of October, UW had the necessary equipment on campus, and it’s currently being used by three teams: football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball.
Robert Scheidegger is UW’s associate athletic director for health and wellness and the football team’s head athletic trainer. Scheidegger also serves as the head of the athletic department’s COVID-19 operations committee. He’s been organizing UW’s testing process, and he spoke with The News Tribune this week about the process.
Understanding testing
Head football physician Dr. Kimberly Harmon has been instrumental to the process, Scheidegger said. Along with serving on the Pac-12 health and wellness advisory board, Harmon is the head of the sports medicine section and a UW professor of family medicine, orthopedic surgery and sports medicine.
“(Harmon) has done a lot of work on antigen testing specifically and its utility for sport,” Scheidegger said. “She obviously is the main driving force on our campus for making sure we have things set up the right way. We actually have a group of our staff that are health care professionals here on campus that have gone through a lot of different training to actually process tests using the Quidel machines.”
Training included collecting samples and then processing samples with the machines on campus. UW was given a federal Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) waiver, which allows facilities to legally examine a person through waived tests. This permits UW staff to operate the machines under the supervision of Harmon.
Antigen tests detect specific proteins on the surface of the virus, while PCR tests detect the virus’ genetic material. While the PCR test is more reliable, the antigen test produces quicker results.
Football players receive antigen tests daily. Scheidegger said that process is used for screening, like a more sophisticated temperature check station. It’s used to prevent a person infected with COVID-19 from entering the UW footprint.
Athletes then receive a PCR test at least once a week, and Scheidegger said the particular test used at UW is “probably one of the best in the world and definitely one of the best in the country.”
“The one little drawback to the PCR test is that it takes some time to process,” he said. “It’s just not functional to get this test and expect to have a turn around that’s quick enough that you can essentially use it as a screening tool for athletes before they participate.
“A lot of the ways that people are using PCR testing is they test everyday, but they are always a day behind with their results. One thing that our medical people in our conference really wanted to do was find a way that could get a little bit ahead in that process and find a better way to screen athletes so that they can participate.”
Antigen testing also tends to give more false positives, Scheidegger said.
“If we have a positive antigen test with one of our athletes, it triggers an automatic PCR test,” Scheidegger said. “It helps us get a little bit different perspective on what a positive antigen test might mean for our athletes because we have access to same day PCR testing.’’
When he announced the partnership, Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott said the prices of the tests were confidential but would be covered by member schools. The San Jose Mercury News’ John Wilner reported that the cost for antigen testing is $21 to $23 per test, which is cheaper than a PCR test ($30). Wilner wrote that for a football program to order 150 antigen tests to administer daily over 15 weeks, the cost would be about $350,000.
Testing doesn’t replace other prevention factors that include mandatory face coverings and maintaining a 6 foot distance from other people, Scheidegger said. The athletic department also still participates in contact tracing.
Football practice procedures
Football players arrive in groups each day for testing, which Scheidegger said helps keep the process organized. The staff walks the players through the process, but the tests are self-administered. The tests are then transferred to the processing facility on campus. A single test takes about 15 minutes to process, and they process steadily once they begin running.
When they aren’t actively practicing, Scheidegger asks athletes to only participate in activities that experts consider low risk. He advises them to always wear a face covering and remain 6 feet apart. When players enter the facility for testing, they remain spaced and with face coverings on until the antigen results return.
While players don’t have to wear a face mask while practicing on the field, they are required to pull their masks on when they are standing on the sideline.
“If we have a positive, then we would collect a PCR test. If they’re feeling healthy, then we just send them home and they are in contact with us,” Scheidegger said.
“Once we get results, we consult with our physician about a plan for that about all the big picture findings: the PCR results, the antigen results, how they’re feeling, a contact-tracing interview. There’s a lot that goes into it and each case is individual.”
While the university at-large is currently dealing with an outbreak — there have been more than 240 cases connected to fraternities and sororities — the athletic department has largely avoided a similar scenario, even with more than 500 athletes on campus.
In its most recent testing update released a week ago, UW athletics reported that 538 athletes had gone through testing. There are five active positive cases. Since athletes began returning to campus on June 15, the athletic department has administered 2,479 PCR tests with 31 total positive cases.
“I feel like the testing results have been really positive,” said UW athletic director Jen Cohen. “As long as our students keep doing what they’re doing, we’re going to be able to keep doing what we’re doing. If circumstances change, we may have to pivot. But so far, they’ve just been phenomenal.”
Season procedures
Scheidegger said the Pac-12 hasn’t finalized its COVID-19 prevention plan for football game days, but he does have some idea of what the procedure will entail.
Anyone who will be on the field and come in contact with athletes — game officials, coaches, athletic trainers, field personnel and referees — will go through antigen screening. Procedures for entering and leaving the stadiums will also be created.
Led by deputy athletic director Erin O’Connell, the team at UW has been outlining scenarios for weeks. Scheidegger said they’ve been working closely with Public Health — Seattle & King County to put together a plan that fits public health standards of the area.
“We’ll be ready as soon as the Pac-12 finalizes their protocols,” Scheidegger said. “We’ll be able to mesh those into what we’ve already got put together and make sure our local health authorities are comfortable and that they’re supportive with what we’ve got and then we’ll be able to move forward.”
The Pac-12 is also working on what full testing capability will look like at the conference level and at UW. Currently, football and men’s and women’s basketball are using antigen testing. Other sports are only participating in low-risk training. For those teams, Scheidegger said “risk of transmission due to athletic participation should be basically zero.”
“Until we get more clarity on the Pac-12 Conference, we tend to keep all the sports besides those three in that training category,’’ Scheidegger said. “As soon as we have clarity from the conference, we can do our own assessment as far as capacity here on our campus. Then we’ll move forward with making a decision about what other sports to ramp up.”
While fans won’t be allowed to attend Pac-12 sporting events held on campus, the conference announced Wednesday that approved athlete families would be allowed to attend football games this season. Final approval is subject to local public health authority guidelines.
Long-term considerations
When the season was initially postponed, testing wasn’t the only concern of the Pac-12 medical advisory committee. The group also worried about long-term effects on athletes who test positive. Cardiac effects were particularly worrisome as some COVID-19 patients were found to have inflammation in the heart and muscle lining.
Dr. Jonathan Drezner, who is the team physician for the Seattle Seahawks, is also the director of the UW Medicine Center for Sports Cardiology and a UW team physician. Scheidegger said he’s also “one of the world’s leading researchers in athletic cardiac issues,” which helped UW feel more confident about moving forward.
“One of the things that made us feel more comfortable with athletic participation was an algorithm that we have for our student-athletes who test positive for COVID-19,” Scheidegger said.
UW created a required process for athletes that are diagnosed with COVID-19. Along with a cardiac work-up, athletes are continually monitored for complications that have been identified .
“They put together essentially a series of tests,’’ Scheidegger said, ‘’from monitoring that’s done with some blood work for some markers that could be suggestive of cardiac inflammation to Echo and cardiac MRI and all these different things.”
NFL outbreaks
Even with antigen testing and elite protocols, COVID-19 breakouts can still happen. That’s been the case recently in the NFL with positive cases appearing on several teams. The Tennessee Titans had the biggest outbreak with 24 cases since Sept. 24.
“We don’t have all the answers,” Scheidegger said. “The NFL teams are working really hard to minimize those things. The screening is important. Communicating things athletes can do outside our footprint to prevent being exposed. We feel like environment we can create on campus, in our facility, is a really low-risk facility as far as COVID-19 transmission.
“We have advanced cleaning procedures. We have interventions for social distancing like training in modified capacity and plexiglass and all these different things. Really, what we’ve found based on the experience that we’ve had so far is that decisions that athletes make outside our facility are much more impactful from that standpoint.”
Senior defensive back Elijah Molden said the football team is “pretty dialed in” when it comes to following COVID-19 protocols.
“I think it starts from the top all the way down,” he said. “I can definitely see, especially as a younger player, the freshmen coming in new to the college scene and the some other players, I can see how it’s difficult not to go out and have fun and have a part in the college experience. but this is our responsibility and we made this commitment to the team.”
This story was originally published October 15, 2020 at 10:00 AM.
