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Despite Planning, Australian Open Players Test Positive

VOA News

   The Australian Open will go ahead as planned, despite the discovery of
   three coronavirus cases that have put 47 players into quarantine for
   two weeks, the tennis tournament's director, Craig Tiley, said
   Saturday.

   Australia's international borders are closed, but there are exceptions.

   For the international tennis tournament, players and their coaches flew
   into the country on 17 charter flights from seven nations. All of the
   estimated 1,200 players, coaches, staff members and officials were
   required to receive negative coronavirus tests before boarding their
   planes, which were kept at 25% capacity.

   However, two positive cases were detected on a flight from Los Angeles
   and a third case was found on a flight from Abu Dhabi. Sylvain Bruneau,
   who coaches Canadian star Bianca Andreescu, said he tested positive
   after arriving from Abu Dhabi, but the rest of his team has tested
   negative.

   Since the pandemic began, Australia has recorded nearly 29,000 cases
   and just more than 900 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins
   University Coronavirus Research Center. Just over 800 of those cases
   occurred in Victoria state during a second wave of the virus.
   Melbourne, the capital of Victoria, is where the Australian Open is
   played.

   Tournament organizers had hoped that charter flights, early arrivals
   and frequent testing would allow the Open to be played without a hitch.

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