Hockey players recover from COVID-19, discharged from hospital

Manpreet Singh, Surender Kumar, Jaskaran Singh, Varun Kumar, Krishan Bahadur Pathak and Mandeep Singh have been placed under quarantine at SAI Bengaluru.

Manpreet and five other players had tested COVID-19 positive on their return to the national hockey camp at the SAI South Centre in Bengaluru.

Six Indian men’s hockey team players, including skipper Manpreet Singh, were on Monday discharged from a Bengaluru hospital after recovering from COVID-19.

The Sports Authority of India (SAI) said in a statement that Manpreet, defender Surender Kumar, Jaskaran Singh, Varun Kumar, goalkeeper Krishan Bahadur Pathak and striker Mandeep Singh have been placed under quarantine at its Bengaluru centre after they were discharged from the hospital.

“Manpreet Singh, Surender Kumar, Jaskaran Singh, Varun Kumar, Krishan B Pathak and Mandeep Singh, who had tested positive for COVID-19 earlier this month and were later shifted to hospital as a precautionary measure and for better monitoring were discharged from hospital earlier today,” the statement read.

“They are now under quarantine at Sports Authority of India’s National Centre of Excellence (NCOE) in Bengaluru.”

Speaking about the health condition of the players, Dr Arun Kumar of SS Sparsh Multispeciality hospital in Bengaluru said, “All the six players have recovered fully and their vitals are absolutely stable.

“They will be in quarantine at SAI’s Bengaluru centre and will be given the anti-body test after 10 days to check if they have built immunity against the virus.”

"All the six players are housed in the ground floor of the hostel where other members of the camp have no access," SAI said.

“This is a precautionary measure to ensure there is no contact between the six players and the other campers over the next 10 days.”

The SAI said the rest of the players of the Indian hockey teams, men and women, will resume sporting activities from Wednesday as scheduled.

Earlier, a SAI source had told PTI that all the six players have tested negative twice and their vitals are normal. They returned positive for the virus between August 10 and 12.

“All the hockey players have completely recovered from COVID-19 and will be discharged this evening,” the source said.

Although asymptomatic, Mandeep was the first to be shifted to the hospital by the SAI after a dip in his blood oxygen level.

Later, Manpreet and four other players were also moved to the same hospital as a precautionary measure.

Currently, 33 male and 24 female players are in Bengaluru for the camp. The light intensity national camp is expected to continue till September 30.

All the women players tested negative in the on-arrival tests conducted by SAI.