A Tottenham player or staff member was the only individual in the latest round of Premier League testing to test positive for coronavirus, the club has confirmed.
In another encouraging result for Project Restart, on Monday and Tuesday, the top-flight announced only one positive out of 1,197 players and staff tested from all 20 clubs.
Spurs, who had previously reported no positive results, said they were “actually asymptomatic” and would isolate themselves for seven days, in line with the Premier League protocol. But they nonetheless did not disclose the identity of the patient.
If he’s a player he won’t be able to re-join the contact training for another week, potentially leaving him with a question about restarting the Premier League.
But the current protocol as part of Project Restart rules that for a total of 14 days, including the seven days of self-isolation, a Premier League player returning a positive test would be kept away from group training anyway.
On the eighth day, players may return to the training ground for individual sessions, after negative test result. However, they cannot resume playing matches before returning to their first game.
In a statement Spurs said: “We were told by the Premier League that after the latest round of testing at our Training Centre, we received one positive test for COVID-19. Due to medical discretion, the name of the individual will not be released.”
The top-flight is set to restart on June 17 in less than two weeks, with Arsenal’s trip to Manchester City and Aston Villa vs Sheffield United, with Spurs expected to resume the weekend of June 20-21 against Manchester United.
From 5,079 tests since the centralized program began on May 17-18, the result of the fifth round of testing takes the total number of positives in the top-flight to 13, with tests being carried out twice a week.
Of the 1,130 individuals tested in the previous round, there were no positive results, while the first three rounds produced six, two, and four positive results, respectively.
