The Premier League has confirmed that six players or staff members have tested positive for coronavirus after their first round of testing, and have revealed what that now means.
As per their official statement, they revealed that they carried out 748 tests on players and club staff across three different clubs between May 17 and 18.
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Of those tested, six were positive for coronavirus.
Those individuals will now self-isolate for seven days, while the league confirmed that they would not be releasing further information on the identity of those in question due to legal and operational requirements.
Teams were allowed to return to training this week while adhering to ongoing measures put in place due to the pandemic, with the plan being to resume the current campaign in June.
However, as they ramp up testing and potentially continue to find more positive cases, it remains to be seen what happens when more and more clubs find themselves without key individuals in the coming weeks leaving them at a disadvantage if the season gets back underway.
Naturally, it’s hoped that now they’ve identified positive cases and they will self-isolate, it will give them enough time to recover, be tested again and get the all-clear to return to training.
Further, it’s unclear at this stage how many of those individuals were players and at which clubs they’re at. Ideally, the Premier League will hope that testing doesn’t uncover further positive cases, as naturally even the results released on Tuesday could raise concerns for players and others over the return of football in the coming weeks and months.
That said, only six positive cases in 748 tests is surely a positive in itself as that is a very low number in greater context.