NBA Postpones Chicago Bulls Games After the Fully Vaccinated Team Suffers Covid Outbreak

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The NBA announced their decision to postpone the Chicago Bulls next two scheduled games as the fully vaccinated team continues to suffer a massive Covid outbreak throughout its roster.

On Sunday, Bulls All-Star Zach LaVine entered league health and safety protocols and forward Alize Johnson joined him after testing positive for Covid Monday morning. Despite being fully vaccinated, the Bulls have had 10 players enter the NBA’s health and safety protocols in the last 13 days. Additional staff members, including team broadcasters Stacey King and Bill Wennington also recently tested positive for Covid.

Good days and bad days @Crayestout but finally got through the 103 temperatures which was pretty scary last week!! Still very weak moving around have a little body soreness but getting the high temperature down was a blessing! I could only imagine if I wasn't vaccinated oh my 🙏🏾 https://t.co/nP53ay0BXy

— Stacey King (@Stacey21King) December 13, 2021

Vaccinated players who enter the league’s health and safety protocols are required to quarantine for 10 days, or until they return two negative Covid tests 24 hours apart.

The Bulls were scheduled to play the Detroit Pistons Tuesday night and the Toronto Raptors Thursday. The postponed matchups are the first games the NBA had to move this season for a Covid related issue. Chicago is scheduled to play their next game against the Los Angeles Lakers Sunday, unless the outbreak forces that game to be postponed as well.

Last week, the league announced more than 97 percent of its players are vaccinated and more than 60 percent have reportedly received booster shots. According to Bulls star Nikola Vučević, who tested positive for Covid in early November, most of the team received booster shots.

Despite widespread vaccinations, there has been a recent influx of breakthrough cases to hit the NBA, but Bulls head coach Billy Donovan noted many of their players are asymptomatic.

“Maybe some of it’s from the vaccination, we’ve got a lot of guys sitting home with no symptoms,” Donovan said over the weekend. “I understand the testing protocols, and I understand what the league’s trying to do in terms of keeping and making sure everybody’s safe. But we do have guys back there that feel fine. And that’s obviously a good thing too, because I think when guys have gone through real, real difficulty of getting really, really sick, it’s really made it a lot harder for them coming back.”