On Sunday, the Minnesota Vikings picked up their first victory, defeating the Houston Texans at NRG Stadium by a score of 31-23. The week leading up to this one was strange for the Vikings, as they had to shut down their facilities for a few days in light of their previous opponents, the Tennessee Titans, having a rash of positive COVID-19 tests after last week’s game.
There was one more scare for the Vikings before Sunday’s game, though.
Mike Zimmer reveals that the #Vikings had a starter receive a false positive COVID-19 test before the game. That player then had to pass two additional tests to get cleared.
— Sam Ekstrom (@SamEkstrom) October 4, 2020
According to Sam Ekstrom of Zone Coverage, Vikings’ coach Mike Zimmer told the media that one of the Vikings’ starters had gotten a false positive test for the virus prior to today’s game. However, the player then took two subsequent tests and both came back negative.
The Vikings, ultimately, did not have any changes to their starting lineup for today’s game. There’s no word on which player had the false positives come back, and there’s a very good chance that we’re never going to know who it was. But, the important thing to come out of this is that it was a false positive.
Given what happened in the aftermath of last week’s game, it will be important to see what happens with the Vikings and the Texans over the next few days as daily testing continues. For now, however, the Vikings have again dodged the COVID-19 bullet.