SAN ANGELO, Texas — After electing to play football in the fall, and to resume the rest of their fall sports Angelo State University is now facing positive COVID-19 cases.
ASU Associate Athletic Director Steven Mahaffey said he and the medical team from Shannon Medical Center as ensuring the safety for their students.
"Typically, when we get a positive case, will, they'll be quarantined for about 14 days until they are released," Mahaffey said.
Mahaffey was not able to disclose how many athletes tested positive or what sport they play for, because all that information must go through Shannon.
However, the number of positive cases are added to the total number cases for the entire university.
According to the ASU website, there are 109 reported positive cases for students and 18 for faculty and staff with 60 active student cases and two for faculty and staff.
Mahaffey explains what they do if an athlete does test positive for fall sports.
"If they had a contest scheduled that weekend, then they would have to sit out and they would have to sit out practices and stay in quarantine," Mahaffey said. "They might be put into a hotel room that the university has contracted with or if they live alone and they can quarantine there."
The athletic department periodically test all athletes. They have a pregame and postgame test, and more testing is done throughout the week. If the team is not in season, they do what they call surveillance testing. Testing is done once a week.
Even with the positive cases, Mahaffey and the rest of ASU athletic department are in high spirits.
"There's really been no huge concern, no huge panic we think we've kept it relatively low," Mahaffey said. "Student athletes are in good spirits, and everybody's doing great, haven't had any major symptoms even with those positive cases."
The ASU athletic schedule will continue as planned and Mahaffey and staff will continue to monitor all the athletes.