Three extra COVID-19 circumstances linked to Australian Open arrivals
4 min read Image Source : GETTY IMAGES More than 1,200 gamers, coaches, employees, officers and media have arrived on 17 constitution flights since final Thursday to organize for the Australian Open, which begins Feb. 8.
Australian Open event director Craig Tiley has dominated out any change within the best-of-five set format for males’s singles matches on the season-opening tennis main as three extra COVID-19 circumstances had been reported among the many worldwide arrivals for the event.
There are 72 gamers now in exhausting quarantine and unable to observe due to 9 lively coronavirus circumstances — a rise in three for the reason that weekend — among the many incoming vacationers to Melbourne. There was no fast indication from well being officers Tuesday that there could be any enhance within the variety of affected gamers.
In excellent news for gamers in lockdown, there have been recommendations that some could also be allowed to depart their rooms for observe earlier than the 14-day exhausting quarantine interval.
More than 1,200 gamers, coaches, employees, officers and media have arrived on 17 constitution flights since final Thursday to organize for the Australian Open, which begins Feb. 8. COVID-19 circumstances have been linked to 3 flights, from Abu Dhabi, Doha, Qatar and Los Angeles.
Victoria state Premier Daniel Andrews stated a number of the circumstances linked to the event will probably be reclassified as “non-infectious shedding,” doubtlessly permitting modifications for some gamers in lockdown.
“If you’ve got say 30 people who are deemed a close contact because they’ve been on a plane with a case, and the case is no longer an active case but a historic shedding, well that would release those people from that hard lockdown,” Andrews stated.
All individuals touring to Australia for the tennis needed to return a damaging take a look at earlier than boarding the constitution flights, though there was a minimum of one exemption within the case of the historic shedding.
Tennys Sandgren, a two-time quarterfinalist at Melbourne Park, initially examined optimistic for the coronavirus in November and the Victorian state well being authorities decided after reviewing the American participant’s medical information that he was now not contagious, though nonetheless shedding viral particles. So he was given approval to fly to Australia final week.
“My two tests were less than 8 weeks apart. I was sick in November, totally healthy now,” Sandgren tweeted. “There’s not a single documented case where I would be contagious at this point. Totally recovered!”
Tiley, showing on Nine Network tv on Tuesday, rejected calls from some males’s gamers to cut back Australian Open matches to best-of-three units as a substitute of finest of 5.
“We’re a Grand Slam,” Tiley stated. “Right now, three out of five sets for the men and two out of three sets for the women is the position we plan on sticking to.”
Some gamers have used social media to element their perceived hardships of being in lockdown.
“These are high performing athletes and it is hard to keep a high performing athlete in a room,” Tiley stated. “This is the contribution that they need to make with the intention to get the privilege of after they do come out to compete for $80 million (US$62 million) in prize cash.”
Tiley stated the optimistic checks amongst a number of the arriving gamers and officers weren’t a shock.
“There was going to be an expectation to have several positive cases,” Tiley stated. “But now we’re in a position where they’re in lockdown, designed to protect the community.”
Tiley defended Novak Djokovic for interesting to Australian Open organizers to ease restrictions in a listing reported on Monday, together with a request to shift as many gamers as attainable in Melbourne to personal residences with tennis courts.
Djokovic’s requests had been rapidly refused by Andrews.
“In the case of Novak, he wrote a note, these weren’t demands, they were suggestions,” Tiley stated. “But he, too, is understanding what two weeks of lockdown means . . . every player coming down knew that if they were going to be close contacts or test positive that these were going to be the conditions.”
A smaller group of gamers who landed within the South Australia capital of Adelaide, together with Serena Williams, Naomi Osaka, Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal, are additionally allowed outdoors for observe periods underneath bio-secure protocols.
The season-opening Grand Slam occasion was delayed for 3 weeks due to the pandemic.
Australia’s worldwide borders are largely closed, though there are exemptions in particular circumstances. All arrivals should do obligatory quarantine. Each of Australia’s states and territories has its personal border and journey restrictions, and people can change on very quick discover.
Victoria state, which has Melbourne as its capital, accounted for 810 of Australia’s 909 deaths from COVID-19, most of these throughout a lethal second wave three months in the past which resulted in curfews and lockdowns for town.
