NORFOLK, Va – (WAVY) – When it comes to certain months being associated with various topics or organizations, few people may know that March is actually “National Athletic Training Month”. It spotlights the men and women behind the scenes of athletic programs everywhere that help athletes and coaches day to day in regards to practice and competition. Through the pandemic, athletic trainers have become even more critical to athletic departments everywhere.
“We’re running 400 tests per week,” Meghan Antinarelli said, Assistant Athletic Director of Sports Medicine at Norfolk State University. “The level of awareness of covid on a daily basis is through the roof.”
The Spartans men’s basketball program has been in Indianapolis since Saturday night after winning the MEAC tournament and qualifying for the NCAA tournament. There, the team is being tested each day by a third party company hired by the NCAA. During the MEAC tournament in Norfolk, the North Carolina A&T men’s team was forced to drop out because of a positive Covid test. It was later reported it was a false positive test.
“Are we going to follow up with an immediate follow up test after a positive? No, not necessarily,” Antinarelli said. “We do if we have a positive on a rapid test. Then you’ll go get your PCR test done. If you test positive on a PCR test, that’s a 97 or 98 percent specificity rate so typically we don’t follow those up but there is that two percent. Does that two percent (inaccurate test) happen? It certainly does.”
