Fans of professional football owe Navdeep Singh, M.D., former chief medical executive for Sutter’s Eden Medical Center and a team doctor for the Raiders for 10 years, a debt of gratitude for helping keep their favorite teams playing throughout the 2020 season—despite the pandemic.
Dr. Singh joined the National Football League’s Health and Safety Committee last August. As a member of the committee, he supported the NFL’s COVID-19 testing and monitoring program that led the NFL to a successful 2020 season without any games canceled.
“The daily habit of masking and avoidance of unnecessary indoor interaction, in particular in-person meetings and eating meals together, were key. These measures, in conjunction with daily COVID testing followed by immediate isolation of confirmed cases and quarantine of close contacts in a highly organized, collaborative environment…was the foundation for containing the virus,” says Dr. Singh.
Dr. Singh also helped author an article for the Annals of Internal Medicine about the large-scale daily testing program that monitored players and staff of 32 NFL teams in 24 states and focused on early detection, prevention and treatment of COVID-19.