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News: Three WWE Venues in Orlando Under Investigation for Being COVID-19 Hotspots; WWE Responds with Statement

By John Canton • Published 20th October 2020

It is being reported tonight that WWE has to deal with Orange County Department of Health Officials. WFTV-9 ABC in Orlando is reporting that health officials are asking the “Strike Team” to look into 17 businesses in town where they feel COVID-19 cases might be spreading.

While the story notes that bars are a big concern, they also included three venues where WWE has been taping shows. Those three venues include:

* WWE Performance Center on Forsyth Commerce Road
* Amway Arena
* Full Sail University

The Performance Center is where a lot of WWE shows were taped over the last seven months. Amway Arena is home to WWE’s ThunderDome over the past two months and where they will continue through November at least. Full Sail University is where WWE has taped NXT since the spring until they moved to the WWE Performance Center earlier this month.

Here’s a graphic that appeared on the local Orlando news.

WWE issued the following statement to WFTV-9 ABC in Orlando about their business practices.

“WWE is not open to the public, but rather operating on a closed set with only essential personnel in attendance. As part of on-going weekly testing protocols, Aventus Labs have administered more than 10,000 PCR tests to WWE performers, employees, production staff and crew resulting in only 1.5 percent positive cases as compared to the current national average of more than 5%. Additionally, extensive contact tracing takes place and impacted individuals are placed in 14-day quarantine and then only cleared after they test negative.”

That’s likely all that WWE is going to say about it. We’ll update this story if there is more to it.

TJR Thoughts: This seems like the kind of thing that health officials in Orlando should have been worried about months ago when WWE wasn’t doing full COVID-19 tests. Since WWE has done more thorough testing, there have been a lot less positive cases in the last few months as they said in the statement.

Since WWE is on a closed set with personnel only, this shouldn’t be a major issue that WWE has to worry about.