Georgia football coach says team has COVID-19 ‘spike’ despite high vaccination rate

University of Georgia head football coach Kirby Smart said this week that the team is having a COVID-19 outbreak despite a high vaccination rate, ESPN reported.

During a teleconference with reporters Monday, Smart said three or four players will miss Saturday’s game against the University of Alabama-Birmingham due to the coronavirus.

“For us, we’re at our highest spike. And people are talking about vaccinations — well, these are people that are vaccinated. We’re talking about breakthroughs, and so that concerns you not only for the players on your team that are unvaccinated, that are playing and not playing, because we want everybody to be safe,” Smart said.

Last month, Smart said 90 percent of the team’s players, staff members and coaches have been vaccinated against the virus, according to ESPN.

Georgia, which defeated Clemson University 10-3 in their season opener Saturday, did not require fans to show proof of vaccination or negative COVID-19 tests to attend the game, ESPN noted.

Monday’s announcement from Smart came the same day Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin missed the football team’s season opener against the University of Louisville after testing positive for COVID-19, ESPN reported.

Kiffin shared last month that all of the players and staff members have received the COVID-19 vaccine.