Six players in the English Premier League have tested positive for Covid 19. The news comes after clubs have resumed to small group non contact training.
RTE Sport report the tests were carried out on Sunday and Monday. Tests will also be carried out twice as agreed on by the clubs. It’s reported that around 40 tests will conducted in every club at each training session. The Premier league issued a statement confirming that six players tested positive for Covid 19. It said, “The Premier League can today confirm that on Sunday 17 May and Monday 18 May, 748 players and club staff were tested for COVID-19. Of these, six have tested positive from three clubs”.
The statement said that players and staff will of those six cases will now have to self isolate for one week. “Players or club staff who have tested positive will now self-isolate for a period of seven days” the statement read. Burnley have revealed that a member of their backroom staff has been diagnosed with the virus. They said that Ian Woan is asymptomatic and will enter the self isolation period of 7 days.
Training resumed this week in small groups and was of course non contact owing to the protocols which were set out. Phase one of training will see groups of around 5 allowed train, while practicing strict social distancing procedures. Sessions are also not allowed be no longer than 75 minutes. Yesterday I reported that the Premier League agreed on the protocols set out by Project Restart which allowed clubs to train groups of five. RTE Sport report that another Premier league meeting is due to be held on March 26th to discuss contact training.
There were suggestions that the league may resume in Mid June. However with the current cases now this is likely to have pushed the date back a bit further than that.
