The NBA plans to roll out an ambitious aspect of its league-wide contact tracking program beginning Jan. 7 by requiring players and many team members to wear sensors during all team-hosted activities outside of games. , according to a competition memorandum obtained by ESPN.
Only Level 1 and Level 2 individuals, designations described in competition health and safety protocols that include specific players and staff, such as coaches, will be required to wear Kinexon SafeZone contact sensors in team aircraft, the team bus, during training 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 could be. Players do not have to wear the sensors during matches or in the team hotel while traveling.
A trial period for the program began on Dec. 23 and is expected to be rolled out on Jan. 7, according to another league memo obtained by ESPN.
The sensors don’t record a GPS location and are triggered when they get close to another person, defined as 6 feet, a point that NBA health officials highlighted to allay concerns about whether they would be monitored. individual movements. The proximity alert feature of the devices, which operated 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 personal interactions” with other people wearing a sensor, which, according to the NBA, will help track down contacts in cases of positive coronavirus cases. Such assessments also include interviews with players and staff, as well as examining images from cameras inside the team’s premises to better understand who may have been exposed to an infected person.
A health official with direct knowledge of the situation noted that the sensors should help significantly to better determine which players or staff might need to be quarantined if the situation arises.
“We don’t want to have to unnecessarily quarantine someone who doesn’t have to be,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
This effort is a collaboration of the NBA, the players’ union and medical officials, and the officials involved believe it should be proactive in identifying situations where staff and players interacted in close proximity, often resulting in problematic in case an infection occurs.
“We hope it can also be used, not only when there are cases, but also proactively to try and reduce the number of contacts before there are cases,” said NBA Senior Vice President David Weiss, who worked with players’ union officials and medical experts during the pandemic, to ESPN.
The NFL has used these sensors throughout the season, and the NBA volunteered to do so in Orlando, and people often wear them on a lanyard. A league memorandum states that there are options for players and designated staff to wear the sensors, including a lanyard, wristband, or other wearable device, although players have the sensor on the waist at the front of the shorts during training.
Player compliance would be strong in Orlando, but keeping out of a closed environment for a season during the coronavirus pandemic creates numerous chances of infection. As such, the NBA believes it is necessary to use the sensors, even if it can be uncomfortable, as some team officials say.
“It will certainly get bumps along the way,” the health official said, adding that the sensors would not be used on personal time.
An NBA athletics 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 every day to work,” the sports coach said on condition of anonymity. “I mean, in theory you have eight one-race tours a year [en la NFL]. That is far from what we do. We have to set it up and load the stuff, distribute it and collect it and distribute it and collect it, and think [en] planes, workouts and bus trips and workouts in the morning and games in the evening and a trip to the airport. It’s a really ambitious thing. “
At least two members of staff from each team are tasked with helping manage the Kinexon SafeZone system, but the data recorded by the sensors is only shared with the league and individual teams and not with other teams, according to a league memorandum. . The information collected on the sensors will be “anonymized” and will not be individually accessible after the 2020-2021 season, the memo said.