Hockey players including captain Manpreet Singh, Surender Kumar, Jaskaran Singh, Varun Kumar and goalkeeper Krishan Bahadur Pathak, who reported to the National Hockey Camp in Sports Authority of India's National Centre of Excellence (NCOE) in Bengaluru along with the team, after a home break, have tested positive for COVID-19.
This was revealed as SAI had made it mandatory for all athletes to take a rapid COVID-19 test upon arrival. There is a chance that the athletes contracted the virus while travelling from their hometown to Bengaluru.
Initially, all had tested negative in the rapid test.
Since Manpreet and Surender developed COVID symptoms later, they along with other ten athletes who had travelled together were given the Quantitative RT-PCR test on Thursday, and the results were positive.
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SAI is yet to obtain the results but they have been informed by the state government. Seven test results are still awaited.
All the athletes, including Manpreet, who reported to camp were undergoing quarantine as per the Health Ministry Guidelines and as a precautionary measure were kept in isolation to arrest the possibility of transmission of the virus. The quarantined athletes did not interact with other athletes who were already present at the camp.
The Standard Operating Procedure of the state government and of SAI is being strictly followed across the campus. Speaking from Bengaluru, India captain Manpreet said, "I am self-quarantining at the SAI campus and I am very happy with the way the SAI authorities have handled the situation. I am very happy that they made the testing of athletes mandatory. That proactive step helped in identifying the problem right in time. I am doing fine and hope to recover very soon.”
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