The NBA plans to roll out an ambitious aspect of its league-wide contact tracing program by requiring players and many team staff members to wear sensors during all team-organized activities outside of games beginning Jan.7. , according to a league memo obtained by ESPN.
Only Level 1 and Level 2 individuals, designations outlined in league health and safety protocols that include specific players and staff members, such as coaches, will be required to wear Kinexon SafeZone contact sensor devices on team aircraft, the team bus, during practices and to and from the arena or home practice facility in connection with team travel, the memo says.
Not using the sensors is subject to discipline, but it is unclear what that might be. Players are not required to wear the sensors during games or at the team hotel when traveling.
A trial period for the program began on December 23 and is expected to roll out on January 7, according to another league memo obtained by ESPN.
The sensors do not record GPS location and will activate when they approach, defined as 6 feet, another person wearing one, a point that NBA health officials emphasized to allay concerns about whether the devices would be monitored. individual movements. The devices’ “proximity alarm” feature, which was active in the Orlando, Florida bubble, is expected to be disabled this season.
The memo states that the sensors will record “the distance and duration of in-person interactions” with other people wearing a sensor, which the NBA believes will aid in its contact tracing reviews in instances of positive coronavirus cases. Such reviews will also include interviews with players and staff members, as well as examining images from cameras at the team’s premises, to better understand who might have been exposed to an infected person.
A health official with direct knowledge of the situation noted that the sensors should significantly help to better determine which players or staff might need to be quarantined should the situation arise.
“We don’t want to have to unnecessarily quarantine someone who doesn’t need to be,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
This effort is a collaboration of the NBA, the players’ union, and medical officials, and the officials involved believe that it should serve to proactively identify situations where staff members and players were interacting in close proximity frequently resulting in problematic in case an infection occurs.
“We are hopeful that it can also be used not only when there are cases, but proactively to try to reduce contacts even before there are cases,” said NBA Senior Vice President David Weiss, who has worked alongside players’ union officials and medical experts during the pandemic, to ESPN.
The NFL has used these sensors during its season, and the NBA did so on a voluntary basis in Orlando, and people often use them on a lanyard. A league memo states that there are options for players and designated staff members to wear the sensors, including a lanyard, wristband, or other wearable device, although players must wear the sensor on the waist at the front of the his shorts during practices.
Compliance among players was said to have been strong in Orlando, but keeping a season out of a contained environment during the coronavirus pandemic creates numerous opportunities for infection. As such, the NBA believes that requiring the sensors is a necessary step, even if it may prove inconvenient, as some team officials say.
“It’s definitely going to have its bumps in the road,” said the health official, adding that the sensors would not be used on personal time.
An NBA athletic coach described the program as “ambitious” and highlighted the differences between the NFL and NBA teams that use the sensors.
“It’s one thing to do that in the NFL, where you basically go to the same place to work every day,” the athletic coach said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “I mean, theoretically you have eight one-game tours a year [en la NFL]. That is far from what we do. We have to set it up and load the things, distribute and collect and distribute and collect, and think [en] airplanes, practices and bus trips and practices in the morning and games in the evening and a trip to the airport. It’s really ambitious. “
At least two staff members from each team will be tasked with helping manage the Kinexon SafeZone system, but the data logged by the sensors will be shared only with the league and individual teams and not with other teams, according to a league memo. . The information collected on the sensors will be “de-identified” and will not be accessible individually after the 2020-21 season, according to the memo.
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