Ahead of the English Premier League's (EPL) 'Project Restart', two more people have now been tested positive for the coronavirus after a second batch of testing, EPL said on Saturday. Since the players returned to limited group training on Tuesday, eight positive tests for the virus have been confirmed.
Ahead of the English Premier League's (EPL) 'Project Restart', two more people have now been tested positive for the coronavirus after a second batch of testing, EPL said on Saturday. Since the players returned to limited group training on Tuesday, eight positive tests for the virus have been confirmed.
"The Premier League can today confirm that on Tuesday 19 May, Thursday 21 May and Friday 22 May, 996 players and club staff were tested for COVID-19. Of these, two have tested positive from two clubs," the statement said.
"The Premier League is providing this aggregated information for the purposes of competition integrity and transparency.
"Players or club staff who have tested positive will now self-isolate for a period of seven days."
As for the identities of the players, Premier League said it would not be providing details of the two new positive tests.
A total of 748 tests of players and club staff made up the initial round of testing on May 17-18. Watford's Adrian Mariappa and two members of the club's non-playing staff and Burnley assistant manager Ian Woan were among six positive tests.
They all are still in their seven-day isolation period. Two other Watford players are also self-isolating after coming in contact with people who tested positive.
Premier League, which is planning to resume back has not seen any match being played since March, but the government has given the green light for the elite sport to restart from June 1, including the top-flight football.
The Premier League's "Project Restart" hopes to resume action in June, although no date has been fixed.
As for the testing, another round is scheduled to take place on Monday and Tuesday. All 20 clubs will hold a meeting on Wednesday to decide whether they can move to phase two and allow full-contact training.
Chief executive Richard Masters said on Friday the Premier League is "as confident as we can be" about a resumption of the top flight and that the remaining 92 games would be completed.
"We wouldn`t have taken the first step to get back to training if we weren`t convinced we had created a very safe environment for our players," he said.
As for Britain's fight against COVID-19, they have seen the highest death toll in Europe with an official figure of 36,675 as of Saturday.
Germany's Bundesliga returned to action last week with matches in empty stadiums and strict safety protocols. Spain's government on Saturday gave the go-ahead for La Liga to resume on June 8.
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 "2 more players from Premier League clubs test COVID-19 positive")
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