Sao Paulo (AFP)
The Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) has authorized Atlético Goianiense to call on four players who have tested positive for Covid-19, for the match against Flamengo on Wednesday on the occasion of the second day of Brasileirao (1st division).
Atlético Goianiense underwent a series of tests on Sunday in preparation for this match. Four players already diagnosed as carriers of Covid-19 (at an unspecified date) were again declared positive after these new tests.
The club, however, appealed to the CBF so that these players can play anyway, arguing that they are in the last days of the disease, that they have already respected a ten-day quarantine imposed after their first test and that 'they are no longer contagious.
Arguments that seem to have hit the mark with the medical commission of the CBF, which therefore authorized the four players concerned to play on Wednesday.
Jorge Pagura, the chairman of this commission explained to Globoesporte that this decision had been taken following a recommendation from the American Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), already approved by the World Health Organization, which states that 'after a positive PCR test, isolation for ten days is sufficient ".
Moreover, "in many cases, new tests continued to be positive for a long time (...) in patients who no longer transmitted the virus to anyone. (...) Of course, there is no at no risk, "he said.
Several matches in the Brazilian football championship, which resumed this weekend, have already had to be postponed after the discovery of cases of coronavirus.
In the first division alone, clubs have already reported more than 160 cases of Covid-19 among their players since the arrival of the pandemic in Brazil, which has already killed more than 103,000 people in Brazil where more than 3.1 million have been infected with the virus.
© 2020 AFP