The Chapeconese Brazilian announced this Wednesday the suspension of all activities of his soccer team after registering 24 positives in the diagnostic tests of covid-19 to which players and members of the technical commission were subjected this week.
The club from the city of Chapecó, which this year will have to compete in the second division of the Brazilian Championship after having lost the category in 2021, resumed work last week to prepare for the dispute of the regional championship of the state of Santa Catarina.
But the positives in the tests of 12 players and 12 members of the technical commission forced him to suspend all activities and announce that he will continue with the work remotely.
In addition to the twelve professional players, another eight from the Sub’15 team also tested positive for covid, forcing Chapecoense to reject the invitation he had received to play the Votorantim Cup in the category.
“Faced with this situation, the club suspended the face-to-face activities of the Football Department this Wednesday and will continue the work remotely. New diagnostic tests will be carried out next Thursday and Saturday to define how we will continue the programming,” the club reported in a release.
According to the note, all those diagnosed were isolated and are serving quarantine despite the fact that the vast majority of cases are asymptomatic and none are serious.
The Chapeconese case is not isolated among Brazilian clubs, several of which started the preseason with several isolated players for having tested positive for covid-19.
Sao Paulo announced on Tuesday that seven newly infected in the first squad, including Argentine forward Jonathan Calleri, joined four who had already been sent home on Monday.
Bragantino, finalist of the South American Cup in 2021, reported that six players and three members of the technical commission had to isolate themselves, including the Uruguayan midfielder Emiliano Martínez.
Palmeiras, two-time champion of the 2020 and 2021 Copa Libertadores, began his preseason on January 5 with five cases of coronavirus in the first team and today he already has ten players in quarantine.
In Santos there are six positives, including Uruguayan midfielder Carlos Sánchez, and in Botafogo, who this year will play again in the first division of the Brazilian Championship, two, including Paraguayan goalkeeper Roberto ‘Gatito’ Fernández.
The jump in cases of covid-19 in football coincides with the worsening of the pandemic throughout Brazil, one of the most affected countries along with the United States and India and which accumulates 620,371 deaths and 22.7 million positives since the irruption of the virus, in February 2020.
The new wave of the pandemic is attributed to the spread of omicron, a variant of the most contagious covid-19 that is already prevalent in the country, with more than 90% of infections.
