Massive COVID-19 outbreak at top English Premier League club, 8 players test positive

A massive COVID-19 outbreak has hit top English Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur after 13 members of the core playing and coach staff, including 8 players tested positive. The COVID-19 outbreak at the North London based football club is ongoing with the manager Antonio Conte expecting more confirmed cases in the upcoming days.

Confirming the number of people already tested positive, Conte said that the team was “a bit scared” that the situation is “serious”. “It's contagious and there is a big infection. Now we are a bit scared because tomorrow we don't know what will happen,” the Tottenham manager said at a recent press conference.

Conte said that he was scared of the developing nature of the COVID-19 outbreak at the club. The club now have only 11 players available after several of the staff and players tested positive in recent days.

Describing the situation as “so strange and incredible”, Conte said, “Tomorrow, who? Me? I don't know. Better me than a player for sure. It is not right for everyone because we have contact with our family when we come back home.”

While manager Antonio Conte did not confirm if the Omicron variant was responsible for the outbreak, the UK has seen a surge in cases of the new variant of concern. While the country has 568 confirmed cases of the Omicron COVID-19 variant, the actual number could very well be nearer to 10,000, Health Secretary Sajid Javid said yesterday. On the same day, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced stricter COVID-19 restrictions in the UK, noting that the rate of Omicron infections was doubling every two to three days, confronting the island nation with a big risk of seeing a surge in cases of hospitalisation.