NEW YORK -- Two major league players and two staff members were positive for COVID-19 during the past week among 13,978 tests, a 0.03% positive rate.
There have been 17 positive tests -- 12 for players, five for staff -- among 72,751 monitoring tests during spring training, a rate of 0.02%, the commissioner's office said Friday. The positive tests were among 11 of the 30 teams.
Including intake testing upon arrival at spring training, there have been 33 positive tests -- 25 players, eight staff -- among 78,227 tests, a positive rate of 0.04%. The overall positive tests were among 18 teams.
All players on 40-man rosters and players with minor league contracts invited to big league training camps are screened. Also tested are all other on-field personnel, such as managers, coaches and athletic trainers, strength and conditioning staff, and physicians.
In the final figures released last year, MLB said that it had collected 172,740 samples and that 91 had been positive, or 0.05%. Fifty-seven of the 91 positives were players, and 21 of the 30 teams had a person covered by the monitoring test positive.
There were 45 regular-season games postponed for virus-related reasons last year but just two (between St. Louis and Detroit) were not made up.
