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At least 8 UCLA football players reported to test positive for coronavirus

In a coronavirus briefing Wednesday, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health director announced that at least eight UCLA football players had tested positive for COVID-19. The team had recently begun its second phase of training as it approached a Sept. 26 season-opener. (Ashley Kenney/Assistant Photo editor)

By Sam Connon

Aug. 5, 2020 3:17 p.m.

This post was updated Aug. 5 at 4:14 p.m. to include information from UCLA Athletics’ statement.

At least eight UCLA football players have tested positive for COVID-19, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health director told reporters Wednesday.

During her daily coronavirus briefing, Barbara Ferrer mentioned UCLA football as the source of one of the many coronavirus outbreaks at colleges and universities in LA.

“At UCLA, we’ve seen a number of football players who returned to campus and tested positive,” Ferrer said, before elaborating and claiming there were at least eight cases.

Any student-athletes who tested positive after returning to campus were required to quarantine for 10 days from the date of the test, while anyone who came in contact with someone who tested positive was required to quarantine for 14 days from the date of last contact. UCLA Athletics said in a statement that no student-athletes are currently in isolation.

Student-athletes have been back on campus training in different capacities since June 22. When UCLA Athletics announced its Return to Training process June 17, only local Olympic sport student-athletes were allowed to report to campus, while all football players were permitted to return.

Players who arrived via plane had to be quarantined for seven days and all student-athletes were subject to COVID-19 and antibody tests before returning to practice, but UCLA Athletics has said since June it would not be publicly reporting any positive tests. Instead, the cases would simply be added to the school’s running tracker without any student-athlete designations.

The frequency of tests once football players returned to the field has also not been specified.

The news of the positive tests comes just one hour after Bruin Report Online reported the team had moved on to a partial second phase of its return to training. Each player who had returned to campus had previously been allowed eight hours of activity per week, but that figure reportedly moved up to 14 hours this week.

Rising junior quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson, however, took to Twitter to complain about a lack of practice time and access to facilities earlier Wednesday.

The program has yet to announce a suspension of workouts like Northwestern, Ohio State, North Carolina and others did earlier in the summer, but the timing and status of UCLA’s positive tests still remain unclear.

UCLA is set to kick off its season Sept. 26 against USC, but both schools’ athletic directors have admitted the game is likely to be postponed because of the limits of LA’s current coronavirus guidelines.

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Sam Connon | Alumnus
Connon joined the Bruin as a freshman in 2017 and contributed until he graduated in 2021. He was the Sports editor for the 2019-2020 academic year, an assistant Sports editor for the 2018-2019 academic year and spent time on the football, men's basketball, women's basketball, baseball, men's soccer, cross country, men's golf and women's golf beats, while also contributing movie reviews for Arts & Entertainment.
Connon joined the Bruin as a freshman in 2017 and contributed until he graduated in 2021. He was the Sports editor for the 2019-2020 academic year, an assistant Sports editor for the 2018-2019 academic year and spent time on the football, men's basketball, women's basketball, baseball, men's soccer, cross country, men's golf and women's golf beats, while also contributing movie reviews for Arts & Entertainment.
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