Four athletes test positive for COVID-19, none since June 22

Athletic Director Rick George says they haven't seen any positive cases since June 22 but dodged the question when asked how often players have been tested.

Four Colorado student-athletes have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, none have tested positive since the middle of June, Athletic Director Rick George said in a conference call with the media on Monday.

On June 22, George told Brian Howell of BuffZone that four athletes tested positive for the coronavirus. Since then, George said they have not seen any more positive cases.

George said close to 175 athletes have been tested and cleared to voluntarily workout at CU’s facilities. Still, everyone who enters the facilities has to be checked.

“We do temperature checks and symptom checks every day. I do one every day when I come into the office,” George said. “Our staff members, they go through the same protocols. They wear their masks.”

All athletes have been through at least one round of testing for the coronavirus which took place around a month ago when they arrived on campus. According to those inside the program, very few have been tested twice. 

Since the first round of testing, athletes have gone out with friends, some have left the state and come back while others have taken various trips away from Boulder. 

The Longmont Times-Call also reported positive COVID-19 cases being traced back to the March for social justice led by the CU football team on June 5.

Masks are mandatory in the facility but the rules have become more relaxed when the actual workouts begin, sources in attendance said. 

George said on Monday surveillance testing on all of the athletes will be starting this week, to make sure athletes are not asymptomatic carriers of the coronavirus. 

The Pac-12 outlined these procedures for all of the universities and expects testing to be uniform across the conference, though the conference is not meeting the expectation of weekly testing as set by Commissioner Larry Scott in June.

On Friday, the Pac-12 announced that athletes who choose not to participate during the academic year would still have their scholarships honored and remain in good standing with their university.

George said his goal is to make sure the athletes and their families are educated on the risks and best practices.

“We have taken great strides to ensure that we're informing the parents of our student-athletes, as we're informing our student-athletes in that it is a family decision for them to come back and work out voluntarily or to compete,” George said. “It's important to wear your mask and it's important to do the symptom checks that we do on a daily basis…We're going to do everything that we can to make sure that our student athletes are in a safe and healthy environment.”