The WNBA Announced Seven Players Tested Positive For COVID-19 In Its First Round Of Testing

The WNBA is preparing to begin a 22-game season in Bradenton, Florida at IMG Academy later this month, although a number of big names from Liz Cambage to Natasha Cloud to Jonquel Jones have all opted out of the restart. On Monday, the league announced the overall results of the first round of COVID-19 testing, indicating that seven of the 137 players tested came back positive.

As the release notes, the Indiana Fever have delayed their arrival to IMG Academy due to self-quarantine protocol, which would seem to indicate they had at least one of the players that tested positive after having interacted with others on the team. The good news is that, per Howard Megdal, none of the league’s staff or coaches headed to the IMG bubble tested positive in the first round of testing.

As for how the WNBA will handle testing on site, Arielle Chambers offered some clarification on that process, noting players will arrive in Bradenton, be tested, and then quarantine for four days before testing again and beginning practicing.

Like with the NBA’s first round of testing, positive results were expected — and having no staff test positive is indeed a rare bit of good news right now. The question, like every other bubble league, is whether they can successfully keep an outbreak from occurring once in Florida, particularly with players traveling commercial into a hotzone. That will be the big hurdle they must clear, and it remains to be seen if the four-day isolation period is long enough to detect any cases that may have been contracted during travel.

Hopefully it is and the league can begin its season as planned, but this coming week will be critical to whether that happens.