I remain concerned about the delays we’ve seen in getting results, and I think the turnaround needs to be improved for a full season to work. HOWEVER, I think it’s worth noting that the latest collection of testing results from the monitoring phase are encouraging.
From MLB:
The latest testing results under MLB's COVID-19 Health Monitoring & Testing Plan were jointly announced today by @MLB and the @MLB_PLAYERS. pic.twitter.com/5uuWF3ydfD
— MLB Communications (@MLB_PR) July 17, 2020
On a percentage basis, this is obviously an extremely small positive test rate for samples, especially when compared to the general population. Though it would be helpful to also see positive test rest for people not just samples (we can estimate it’s something like 6 out of 1800 players/tier one personnel if there are 60 per team, which would be a 0.33% positive rate for people).
These results are one indicator that the health and safety protocols – and players’ adherence to them! – can work. It’s also an indicator that players and staff might be making good choices outside of the ballpark, which is where, let’s be honest, most of the risk lies.
Going forward, once the season starts, there will be a much smaller pool of *big league* players to test, as big league camps will be winnowed down to 30 players per team. Then 28 players a couple weeks later, and then 26 players a couple weeks after that. In theory, the raw number of positive tests could go down even further.
As we’ve seen with this virus in our country, the second you start to feel good about how things are going, however, you see another spot blowing up. The players, the staff, the league, and the teams all need to remain hyper-vigilant for this season to work, and not rest on the fact that, so far, the testing results have been strong.