It appears Marshall will serve as a guinea pig for the rest of the college football world.
Monday, Marshall announced that three individuals -- two student-athletes and one university employee -- tested positive for coronavirus. It was subsequently reported that the two student-athletes are Marshall football players. According to the school, none of the three cases are related.
All three, incidentally, are asymptomatic. None of the names are being released by the university.
Ahead of the return to campus, the individuals were tested for the virus. All three are, per university protocol, now in isolation. Their close contacts are being identified and instructed to follow appropriate protocols, including quarantine or self-isolation, the university stated.
Below are some of the guidelines being followed by the university:
- All student-athletes arriving on campus are in mandatory self-isolation for one week;
- Following the completion of the self-isolation period, all student-athletes are tested for COVID-19 and must return a confirmed negative result before being allowed out of self-isolation;
- All Athletic Department employees who come in close contact with student-athletes are being tested; and
- Any student-athlete returning a positive test is required to quarantine and follow positive test guidelines. A student-athlete who tests positive will be required to secure a negative test before completing the quarantine period.
“It shows that what you are doing is working,” said Marshall athletic director Mike Hamrick. “If a positive comes up, we’ve caught it and we can quarantine them. Everyone else was negative and what we set out to do with our testing is working. I think that’s the positive thing about it. You want to know. That’s why you test.”