For a moment Wednesday, it looked as if the San Francisco 49ers’ “Thursday Night Football” game against the Green Bay Packers was in danger.
But despite the 49ers shutting down their facility and Packers running back A.J. Dillon testing positive for COVID-19, the game still will be played.
We’ve seen schedules get moved around and games be postponed during the 2020 NFL season, so why not this one?
Allow Dr. Allen Sills to explain:
“We did the same thing in this case that we always do,” Sills told NFL Media’s Judy Battista. “We went through our contact tracing efforts, we try to identify high-risk contacts and then we look at the total number of positive cases we have and also the high-risk contacts. Then, from that, we generate an idea of whether or not we think there is ongoing transmission in the team. In both of these cases with these two teams, we felt like we had a really good handle on the situation. There were no additional positive tests today and so that gave us confidence in moving forward.”
The 49ers will be without a handful of players, including quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo and tight end George Kittle when they take on the Aaron Rodgers-led Packers.
Kickoff is set for 8:20 p.m. ET.
