Two football players and a staffer at Marshall tested positive for COVID-19, the university announced on the day voluntary workouts began on campus.
In a statement released Monday, Marshall announced that the three are asymptomatic and that the cases are unrelated to each other. University officials do not believe the trio contracted the disease on campus. The three are in quarantine and did not participate in Monday’s workouts.
Marshall did not identify the players or staffer.
“It shows that what you are doing is working,” Marshall athletic director Mike Hamrick said in a statement. “If a positive comes up, we’ve caught it and we can quarantine them. Everyone else was negative and what we set out to do with our testing is working. I think that’s the positive thing about it. You want to know. That’s why you test.”
According to Marshall, the following protocols were put in place for returning student-athletes:
–All student-athletes arriving on campus are in mandatory self-isolation for one week.
–Following the completion of the self-isolation period, all student-athletes are tested for COVID-19 and must return a confirmed negative result before being allowed out of self-isolation.
–All athletic department employees who come in close contact with student-athletes are being tested.
–Any student-athlete returning a positive test is required to quarantine and follow positive test guidelines. A student-athlete who tests positive will be required to secure a negative test before completing the quarantine period.
Marshall, coming off an 8-5 season that ended with a 48-25 loss to UCF in the Gasparilla Bowl, is scheduled to open play this year on Aug. 29 at East Carolina.
