Cole Beasley says a Buffalo Bills player was sent home with positive COVID-19 test this week

Buffalo Bills wide receiver Cole Beasley is against the COVID-19 vaccine and the NFL/NFLPA restrictions associated with the coronavirus. We know this. On Tuesday he got into another public Twitter exchange with folks where he made a note about one of his teammates:

“I’ve already had a teammate who was vaccinated be sent home for covid yesterday,” tweeted Beasley Tuesday. “Luckily he caught it on Monday. Cause if it was Tuesday he would’ve given it to everyone for a whole week before being tested again.”

While Bills rookies reported to training camp on Tuesday, it could be a rehabbing player who was sent home. They have access to the facility in the offseason. Beasley did not elaborate in a subsequent series of tweets.

Of course we know that people can and do test positive for COVID-19 following vaccination. They aren’t 100 percent vaccines with the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines in the 94-95 percent effective range. (19 of every 20 people are protected.) The one-shot Johnson and Johnson vaccine, which several teams offered to players because of the nature of offseason travel, was only about 66 percent effective in trials. So one in three people who receive that single shot still stand a chance to be infected. If 21 hypothetical Bills players received the J&J shot, seven of them would still be left exposed.

What’s interesting here is that captains Josh Allen and Tremaine Edmunds said the players on the team were going to keep coronavirus-related information within the locker room when they spoke with the media at minicamp. Beasley seems to be going out of his way to subvert that with his public comments to spill the tea. It violates the locker room privacy but also this individual player’s privacy.

Under current rules for the offseason and preseason, vaccinated players are only tested once a week while unvaccinated players still require daily testing to enter the facility.

“The rules aren’t keeping anyone safer. It’s just protecting from getting games canceled,” said Beasley in a follow-up. He had multiple tweets Tuesday taking aim at folks disagreeing with him, including an exchange with Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban.

When players return to camp next week, COVID-19 protocols will be in place inside the building and on the field and whether we like it or not, will still be part of the story heading into the 2021 season.