Plexiglass, trackers and high-tech laundry: From Jerry Jones on down, rigorous COVID-19 protocols await Cowboys - The Dallas Morning News

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Ezekiel Elliott has a distinctive look. When he shows up at The Star there’s no doubt he belongs.

But the Cowboys running back can’t even enter the facility these days before interacting with facial recognition technology. The touchless scanner verifies his identity, registers his temperature and determines if he can go any further. The same protocol awaits his teammates and coaches.

And Jerry Jones.

Coronavirus doesn’t discriminate. It can attack the strongest and most vibrant, as it did Elliott nearly seven weeks ago.

The charge for the Cowboys and every other NFL franchise is to create a safe environment, one that protects its athletes and employees with a state of the art approach to what is understood about the virus in this moment. It’s a staggering financial and logistical undertaking with no guarantee of success.

The club formed a COVID-19 task force roughly three months ago. The group of 10 to 12 employees from various departments has met at least twice a week, utilizing data analysis and metrics from the Duke Infection Control Outreach Network (DICON) and consulting with epidemiologists from the Baylor Scott & White Health system.

Thermal scanners, contact tracing bracelets, sanitizing boxes that utilize UV light, plexiglass barriers between lockers and a different way to do laundry are just some of the measures the Cowboys have adopted. The club’s response will continue to evolve.

Now that The Star has been updated, the group turns its attention to AT&T Stadium for what needs to be done for a regular season they can only hope will be played.

One topic of discussion in recent weeks: Can drones play a role?

A flashing red light

Everyone entering the Cowboys headquarters in Frisco must stand in front of this thermal scanner to have their temperature recorded. They cannot enter with a fever.(James D. Smith / Dallas Cowboys)

A trailer for BioReference Laboratories sits at the back loading dock.

Up to 120 tests are conducted daily for members of the organization that fall under the Tier 1 and Tier 2 status. The nasal swab takes about 15 seconds. Add the necessary clerical work and the person is done in three to four minutes.

There’s an option to take an antibody test to determine if the person has contracted the virus previously. That adds only a few minutes to the visit and not much blood is drawn.

Simple, right? But before the trailer could be parked at The Star, the club had to receive approval from the city of Frisco, requiring it to go through several commissions.

Employees in the top two tiers enter the facility through a different door than those who aren’t tested. But there are protocols to follow before arriving.

A contact tracking device is worn on the wrist. It monitors movements throughout the day and lets the wearer know if they are within six feet of another person for more than a few seconds.(James D. Smith / Dallas Cowboys)

Everyone is required to take their temperature and answer five or six questions about potential symptoms as part of the screening process. This information is then put into an app the club uses. If the person doesn’t have a fever and answers no to all the questions, he or she receives a green check mark.

When the employee arrives at The Star, they stop in front of the thermal scanner to have their temperature taken again. If they don’t have a fever, they’re allowed to proceed into the building.

This is when they pick up a Kinexon contact tracing device that can be worn on the wrist or attached to a belt loop. It monitors movements throughout the day, and lets the wearer know if they are within six feet of another person for more than a few seconds.

“A flashing red light comes on if you get too close,” rookie center Tyler Biadasz said.

The tracers are returned when the employee leaves the building for the day and are placed in a device that charges and sanitizes them overnight.

The club has also ordered sanitizing boxes to disinfect phones, keys, jewelry and laptops. They are expected to arrive soon.

Dividing lines

Plexiglass dividers separate the stations in the Cowboys' training room.(James D. Smith / Dallas Cowboys)

Not all of the changes are obvious.

The club retrofitted the HVAC system for the entire facility with air purification and ionization filters. Two vendors have been hired to do daily deep cleanings.

Other differences are apparent.

Hand sanitization stations are everywhere. There are arrows on the floor in the hallways to indicate which direction people should walk. Signage throughout the facility reminds people that masks are to be worn at all times and to remain at least six feet apart.

The weight room has been redesigned with some equipment removed to create a safer environment. The meeting rooms have been altered. Seating in the dining hall has been dramatically limited, usually allowing no more than two to a table.

Meals are served in disposable to-go boxes with no plates or silver wear.

The locker room? It was not uncommon last season for receiver Amari Cooper to lay out a board next to his locker to play chess with cornerback Chidobe Awuzie.

That won’t be happening this season. Plexiglass extensions divide every locker, encasing the players in something that resembles an old-fashioned phone booth. Those dividers are also found in the treatment area of the training room.

Plexiglass dividers will separate Cowboys players in the locker room.(James D. Smith / Dallas Cowboys)

The Cowboys have more locker room space than most clubs. The main locker room houses 78 players. There’s a back room, normally reserved for rookies in camp, that has an additional 27 lockers. There are another two rooms with a total of 100 lockers at the adjacent Ford Center for high school football. There are at least two other auxiliary rooms that can be used for additional lockers or to store and sanitize equipment between practices.

The team could have set aside two empty lockers between every occupied space and made it work. But research showed that installing plexiglass was a more effective option.

The days of players sharing deodorant or shaving cream are gone. Each player is given an individual toiletry kit.

Before the task force got together, the club was already talking to a company called Applied Silver about its infection prevention technology that is EPA certified. The company’s SilvaClean technology turns all laundered materials into active residual germ killers. That means uniforms, towels, and all other textiles that are treated continuously kill pathogens so re-contamination isn’t an issue.

Those machines are now at The Star to wash the close to 700 pounds of laundry a day the equipment staff does during training camp.

Team meetings are held in the lower bowl of the Ford Center. More than 100 people can be safely seated over the two sections, with at least three chairs separating every player on a row and two empty rows bracketing each row that’s occupied.

When the team breaks into units, the defense goes to the northwest concourse to meet, and the offense takes the southwest corner near Tostitos Plaza.

Back in The Star, departments are kept in pods with limited ability to share space with another department. The idea is to contain any potential outbreak within a department in the hopes it won’t spread throughout the building.

What’s next?

A hand sanitizing station greets Cowboys players and personnel before they step on the field at The Ford Center in Frisco, Texas.(James D. Smith / Dallas Cowboys)

These and other procedures were filed in the Infectious Disease Emergency Plan (IDER) the Cowboys and other clubs were required to submit to the league office and Players Association. Auditors from the league will visit The Star and other facilities around the league during training camp to monitor compliance.

The task force now takes much of what it’s learned and implemented at The Star and turn its attention to AT&T Stadium. The group is proceeding along two tracks: making it safe for the players, coaches and officials that stage the game and determining what configurations and protocols are needed for a limited number of fans, knowing different protocols must be adapted for how many fans may actually be allowed into the stadium.

Different research and pitches are constantly being put in front of the task force. One involves whether or not it makes sense to use drones to sanitize large sections of the stadium.

No decision has been made on that yet. Expect it to be discussed when the task force meets in the next few days.

Along with countless other ideas.

Catch David Moore on The Ticket (KTCK-AM 1310 and 96.7 FM) periodically throughout the offseason.

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The Link Lonk


August 01, 2020 at 10:04PM
https://www.dallasnews.com/sports/cowboys/2020/08/01/plexiglass-trackers-and-high-tech-laundry-from-jerry-jones-on-down-rigorous-coronavirus-protocols-await-at-cowboys-training-camp/

Plexiglass, trackers and high-tech laundry: From Jerry Jones on down, rigorous COVID-19 protocols await Cowboys - The Dallas Morning News

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