MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — The WVU athletic department announced Thursday that six players on the school’s women’s basketball team had tested positive for COVID-19 and that the team’s summer workouts would be postponed until July 20 for those that test negative.
The school also announced that three more football players had tested positive for the virus and that contact tracing and self-isolation had begun for those three athletes.
WVU announced earlier that the men’s basketball workouts had also been postponed until July 20 after six members — five players and one staff member — had tested positive for the coronavirus.
“As with our men’s basketball team, the safest thing to do is put a pause on our women’s basketball workouts,” WVU Director of Athletics Shane Lyons said in a statement. “The recent testing numbers, before their workouts even begin, show it’s not in the best interest of the student-athletes. Our medical officials will closely monitor the team in the coming days with a goal of starting its summer prep on July 20.”
According to numbers released by WVU, the school has now had nine football players test positive, as well as one athlete from the women’s soccer program.
All positive individuals will enter a self-isolation period for 14 days. As part of the department’s health and safety protocol, contact tracing procedures have identified additional individuals who could have been exposed, and they will be mandated to self-quarantine per the department’s protocol.
