The Edmonton Oilers closed their training facility until at least the end of the NHL’s holiday break, the team announced on Monday, as the club attempts to stem the spread of COVID-19 infections which have rocked the league in recent days.
By closing their facilities through the end of the break, the Oilers become the ninth club to have adopted such a measure, joining the Toronto Maple Leafs, Montreal Canadiens, Florida Panthers, Colorado Avalanche, Nashville Predators, Detroit Red Wings, Boston Bruins and Columbus Blue Jackets.
News of Edmonton closing its facilities comes shortly after the team added two more players, Darnell Nurse and William Lagesson, to the league’s COVID-19 protocols.
With their additions, a total of eight members of the Oilers are now in COVID-19 protocols. The individuals include Ryan McLeod, Devin Shore, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Duncan Keith, Jesse Puljujarvi and head coach Dave Tippett.
Earlier on Monday, the Calgary Flames, whose COVID-19 outbreak was among the worst any NHL team has seen since the pandemic began, said they would be re-opening their facilities to players and staff who have tested negative for the virus.
Several games heading into the league’s winter break have been postponed in recent days as well, including all games that featured the Boston Bruins, Predators, Panthers, Avalanche, Flames and Detroit Red Wings.
All games before the break that involved cross-border travel were postponed as well, with the number of positive COVID-19 tests among NHL players and personnel skyrocketing in recent days, a rise that is believed to be driven by the prevalence of the Omicron variant.
Research on Omicron is evolving as sample sizes grow, but what has been observed in studies so far indicates it is highly transmissible and less susceptible to vaccines than other variants of the coronavirus, leading to the influx of breakthrough cases — infections among vaccinated peoples — in populations that have high vaccination rates like the NHL and NBA.
Some initial studies have offered hope that Omicron could cause less severe disease than other forms of the virus, despite it being two to three times as likely to spread as the Delta variant.
Several studies have indicated that being fully vaccinated, plus receiving a booster shot, provides protection against infection from the Omicron variant. Without a booster, vaccines have been found to offer less protection against getting infected, though two doses of a vaccine does appear to protect against severe disease from Omicron.
In the NHL, where the overwhelming majority of individuals have been vaccinated, most individuals who have tested positive and are symptomatic have reported mild symptoms.
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