Coronavirus: Premier League records 9 positives before new season kick-off

August 10 – The English Premier League says nine players and club staff have tested positive for Covid-19 over the past week, the last one before the start of the 2021-22 season.

Across two rounds, the Premier League conducted 3,118 tests between August 2 and August 8. From these, there were nine new positive tests.

Brentford, promoted last season, and Arsenal kick off the new campaign on Friday evening.

The Premier League will maintain its twice-a-week testing programme. This season, though, they will be using lateral flow tests in their weekly testing, and only those with a positive outcome will then take a PCR test to confirm the result.

Some clubs have already had pre-season disruption due to Covid-19.

Arsenal cancelled their pre-season trip to the US after a “small number” of positive cases while Aston Villa, Manchester United and Chelsea were also forced to cancel games.

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