NEW YORK (AFP) – Major League Baseball has recorded 83 cases of COVID-19 amongst players and staff since testing began last month, a statement said Friday. 
Figures released by the MLB and its players union on Friday revealed 71 positive cases amongst players and 12 more involving team officials.
Fifty-eight of the cases involving players were found as players reported to training camps and 13 more found after team workouts began. No specific players or clubs were named in the results.
Teams have been conducting workouts for the past week, although some were wiped out by test result delays, ahead of a planned July 23 start to a season cut to 60 games a club by the coronavirus pandemic. Games without fans are set for teams’ home stadiums.
Final first-test figures for players arriving showed 66 of 3,748 tests, 1.8%, were positive. Of those tests, involving 27 different clubs, eight tests were from team staff members.
Monitoring tests, taken every other day for players and two or three times a week for staffers, showed 17 total positives from 7,401 samples, a 0.2% positive rate, from 10 different clubs. Four of those were from staff.
In all, 28 of 30 MLB teams have returned at least one positive test from June 27 through Thursday.
MLB shutdown in March two weeks before the planned start of the 2020 campaign due to the deadly virus outbreak. Talks over safety protocol and financial issues pushed the season plan from July 23-September 27 with playoffs to follow and a World Series as usual in October.
