Bhopal: The Sports Authority of India’s (SAI) Bhopal facility has become the new hotbed of the Covid-19 positive cases with 36 athletes and staff members being diagnosed. Sources from the facility revealed that there were 31 athletes among them. Many reports are still awaited and are arriving from time to time, they said. The staff members from the National Centre of Excellence have also been reported positive in the precautionary testing.
The sports industry in the state is also getting affected by the second wave of the pandemic. Recently, 15 people were reported to be positive to corona at the Tantya Tope Stadium. The athletes and the support staff who were diagnosed with the virus had recently returned from the Judo and Wushu tournaments from other states.
The officials from SAI said that, out of the athletes who had tested positive, none were being prepared for the Tokyo Olympics. So, no big tournament would be missed, he said.
No critical case has yet been reported, but some of them have been sent to hospitals to keep the facility safe from the spread of infection. The rest have been quarantined at the centre, itself.
Reena Kaul, the psychologist at SAI-Bhopal, told Free Press that the players had been kept in the bio-bubble as they were when they returned from the tournaments. In fact, the coaches, too, were kept in safety so that there would be no chance of contamination, she said.
Kaul said the entire staff and boarders had been tested for the virus. The reports were awaited and, till then, all of them had been quarantined, she added.
