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NHL announces shortening of isolation periods for COVID-19

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Brennen Beaudin
December 29, 2021  (1:29 PM)
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The NHL will be changing affecting its COVID-19 protocols, likely due to the complaints and concerns raised by the players and other staff around the league.

According to ESPN's Emily Kaplan, the plan is to shorten the initial isolation period of testing positive for COVID-19 from 10 days to 5 days. These protocols will be aligned with the newly updated CDC recommendations. Players will have the ability to leave their isolation after just five days if they test negative and are asymptomatic. Then, for the next five days, those players will be required to wear a mask everywhere except for when they are on the ice for practices or games.

Although this is approved by the NHL, local authorities could still change how this protocol works. Certain areas may not approve these new guidelines, which could make some teams unable to align with these protocols. The NFL and NBA also made some changes to their protocols, but the issue is that Canada will be whole another monster to fight. Canada is much stricter than the US is as far as guidelines and quarantines, so this may prove to be much tougher up north.

The NHL has already postponed 80 games this season, and recently announced the reimbursement of taxi squads to help prevent further interruption during the season.

espn.com