Record number of Covid infections in Premier League

Record number of Covid infections in Premier League

A statement issued by the English Premier League on Monday, December 27, revealed a record number of positive coronavirus infections among players and staff in the past week.

“The safety of everyone is a priority, and the Premier League is taking all precautionary steps in response to the impact of the Omicron variant of Covid-19. The league has reverted to its emergency measures, and has increased testing of players and club staff to daily lateral flow and twice-weekly PCR tests, having previously carried out lateral-flow testing twice a week”, it read.

Continuing, “The league can today confirm that between Monday, December 20, and Sunday, December 26, 15,186 Covid-19 tests were administered on players and club staff. Of these, there were 103 new positive cases”.

Surging cases among clubs caused several of the festive matches to be postponed. Three of Boxing Day’s games, including the one between Liverpool and Leeds, were called off, with two more now postponed for December 28.

Some clubs have recorded positive test results, but they have not been in large enough numbers to warrant cancelling their matches. It has now reached the point though, with numbers increasing for the sixth week in a row, where it is going to become increasingly more difficult for clubs to compete fairly.

During the week of December 6 to 13, a total of 42 positives were registered, after only 12 the previous week. Last week then saw a jump up to 90 cases, more than double the total of the week before.

Last week, an official statement from the Premier League confirmed that 92 per cent of all players and staff at clubs have been jabbed either once, twice, or received their booster doses. The total double vaccinated is 77 per cent they said. In October, that total was 68 per cent.

At least 84 per cent have had at least one dose of vaccine, which means of course that 16 per cent are yet to have one dose. In comparison to the continent, these figures are poor. Germany’s Bundesliga apparently has 94 per cent of players and staff jabbed, while in Seria A in Italy, the figure is reported to be 98 per cent, as reported by dailymail.co.uk.

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