English soccer league sees first decrease in COVID-19 cases in two months

The Premier League has reported its first decrease of COVID-19 cases in eight weeks, Reuters reported. 

The English-based soccer league on Monday said it had 94 new positive cases among clubs’ players and staff in the last week. 

The figure had been steadily increasing over the past weeks, with 90 positive tests between Dec. 13-19 and a then-record of 103 positive cases between the week of Dec. 20-26, according to Reuters.

“[We] can today confirm that between Monday 27 December 2021 and Sunday 2 January 2022, 14,250 COVID-19 tests were administered on players and club staff. Of these, there were 94 new positive cases [0.65%],” the league said in a statement. 

The league postponed 18 games last month due to COVID-19 outbreaks and injuries within member clubs.

Due to the multiple outbreaks of the virus, teams have been forced to field much weaker lineups during contests that have been played, Reuters reported. 

This comes after other sports leagues, including the NFL, NBA and NHL, have postponed multiple games in the past month due to team outbreaks and revised their respective COVID-19 protocols as well. 

Most parts of the world are dealing with a surge of COVID-19 infections as the highly transmissible omicron variant has become the dominant variant globally.