South Africa vs England: England Camp Cleared Of Virus And Free To Leave South Africa

Two people in the England cricket tour party who gave unconfirmed positive coronavirus tests in South Africa were cleared on Tuesday and freed from self-isolating. The two positive tests, along with an outbreak in the South Africa camp and among workers at their shared bio-secure hotel in Cape Town prompted the rest of the tour to be abandoned on Monday.

England officials still wanted independent ratification of the positive results in its camp. “Following further testing and analysis, in the opinion of the independent virologists based in Cape Town and London, the two individuals are not infected, and do not pose any risk of passing on the infection to the rest of the party, the England and Wales Cricket Board said in a statement.

“The advice is they are now free to join the rest of the group and are no longer self-isolating. The England party will head home on Thursday. The teams played out a three-match Twenty20 series but the first one-day international scheduled for last Friday was postponed to Sunday because of another infection in the South Africa team, then canceled when two hotel workers caught the virus. That made England undergo a round of tests, producing two unconfirmed positives.

With outbreaks apparently in both camps, officials canceled the other scheduled ODIs on Monday and Wednesday, too.

Earlier, CSA chief medical officer Dr Shuaib Manjra, the man in charge of creating a biosecure bubble for England's series in South Africa, suggested that ECB had created a unreasonably high bar for the rest of the world. The increasing cases of COVID-19 in the series has resulted in the tour being called off. Manjra said he was disappointed, but stressed that creating an environment like the one RCB did through their home summer was impractical.

"I could not be more disappointed but I said before the tour that we should expect some positive tests and that the question would be how we treated and managed them. The ECB created more of a 'vacuum' than a 'bio-secure environment' for their international season at enormous cost - and at two venues perfect for the requirements with on-site hotels," Manjra told Sportsmail.

"It was suggested to me that the term 'bio-secure' is revisited because I don't believe it is financially or logistically possible for any other country to create the environment that the ECB did without enforcing a virtual police state.

"We operated safely and I am confident that the venues did all they could to keep a secure perimeter. But this is a virus that the whole world has struggled to control."

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