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NFL Employees Allowed to Jump Hours-Long COVID Testing Line in New York City

A Midtown testing facility kept regular New Yorkers, some of whom had paid $100 for the privilege, waiting up to three hours as half a dozen league staffers walked straight in.

NFL staffers were reportedly allowed to skip the line at a COVID testing center in Manhattan on Monday, according to Gothamist. The outlet reported that a facility employee and league spokesperson both confirmed that they had been given instructions to allow NFL employees to cut the queue at the state-partnered site. Roughly half a dozen NFL employees marched straight into the East Midtown BioReference building, infuriating "miserable and cold" New Yorkers who had been standing in a line wrapped around a full city block with some arriving as long as for up to three hours ahead of their scheduled time slots, after paying $100 for the unkept promise of a swift PCR test. A spokesperson for the NFL said Monday that the league had a contract with BioReference to test players and club officials. The news comes amid new federal data showing that the Omicron variant is racing around the country, now accounting for roughly 73 percent of all new infections.