37 Clemson football players have tested COVID-19 positive. What happens once they do?
Clemson announced Friday afternoon that 37 football players have tested positive for the coronavirus since the athletics department started testing in early June. In total, 43 student-athletes have tested positive for COVID-19.
Not all schools around the country are releasing results of athletes’ tests. Of the more than 40 that have, Clemson has announced the most positive tests in the country, according to USA Today — about one-third of the Tigers’ football roster.
Of the 43 student-athletes who tested positive at Clemson, 25 have recovered and are no longer considered to be active cases. No players have been hospitalized and approximately half of the cases are asymptomatic, according to Clemson.
So what happens when a player tests positive?
“If they test positive they’re moved to a different location. They’re moved out of their apartment to try to separate them from those who may not be infected,” Clemson Associate AD for strategic communications Jeff Kallin said. “What we do is we basically immediately move a person that tests positive into like a quarantine apartment and provide meals and check in with them twice a day for monitoring of symptoms.”
Known contacts of the player who tested positive are also tested, as are any players showing symptoms.
As of Friday, Clemson had performed 290 tests on student-athletes, with 43 of those coming back positive.
Once players are moved to isolation, “they’re heavily encouraged to stay within their apartments. We don’t have anybody standing outside the door to make sure that they don’t leave the apartment ever, but at that point they have tested positive and they are being told not to leave,” Kallin said.
Clemson originally had two positive cases among football players when they were first tested in early June. That number jumped to 23 as of June 19 and then to 37 on Friday.
Clemson has continued on with its voluntary workouts. Several schools, including Kansas State, UNLV and Houston, have stopped workouts due to outbreaks.
Student-athletes who test positive are allowed to return to workouts after they complete a 10-day isolation period, are no longer showing symptoms and have been re-examined by Clemson’s medical staff.
This story was originally published June 30, 2020 at 10:07 AM.
