More Covid cases at SAI Bengaluru

By Express News Service

CHENNAI: Multiple athletes at the Sports Authority of India campus in Bengaluru have returned positive results for Covid 19 in the latest round of tests carried out over last week. It’s learnt that SAI have since ordered a retest on all those athletes who returned positive to eliminate the possibility of false positives. If sources are to be believed, some of the athletes who tested positive had tested positive earlier as well, meaning this could well be a case of reinfection, or false positive.

It’s understood that some of the athletes, who are among Olympic probables, had their first shot of the Covid-19 vaccine on April 29. However, it’s important to place on record that a person is considered to be fully vaccinated only two weeks post the second dose of the vaccine.

This latest round of results is another source of worry for the authorities of the various National Centres if Excellence (NCOE) around the country. In the last few months, several athletes, some of them Olympic probables, tested positive at both the Patiala and Bengaluru centres. Only two weeks ago did SAI, in a press release, noted that seven women’s hockey players test positive.

While they were all returning to the camp after a brief break, that Wayne Lombard, the team’s advisor, also tested positive suggests that there is something wrong somewhere. The South African Lombard hasn’t left the facility in a while.