Michigan athletics says it had 13 new COVID-19 cases this past week
The Michigan Wolverines athletic department had nine student-athletes and four staff members test positive for COVID-19 this past week, the school announced Friday afternoon as part of its weekly update.
The Wolverines tested 2,798 individuals between Dec. 5-11 and received 13 total positive tests. The athletic department does not specify how many positive cases each individual program has.
The update comes as the football program deals with an outbreak that forced a cancelation of this Saturday's game against Ohio State — the first time "The Game" won't be played since 1917.
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Last week, the athletic department revealed 14 student-athletes and one staff member had tested positive; sources previously told the Free Press that at least a dozen members of the football program had COVID-19, leading to the cancelation of both last week's game against Maryland and this week's regular-season finale against the Buckeyes.
On Tuesday, two sources with direct knowledge of the situation told the Free Press at least 40 players were expected to miss the game because of either a COVID-19 positive test, contact tracing or an unrelated injury, while one source said the program received multiple positive COVID-19 test results Monday.
Tuesday afternoon, athletic director Warde Manuel told reporters Michigan canceled the Ohio State game because of an upward trend in positive COVID-19 tests that "continued to go up even over the weekend."
"We were not cleared to participate in practice (Tuesday) by our medical staff and we were looking at, in terms of, by the end of week, much wouldn’t have changed and we still don’t have a total grasp of this virus on our team," Manuel said. "The medical staff felt that we would not be able to participate Saturday, and so to afford Ohio State and the Big Ten conference the ability to adjust where necessary, we felt it was best to talk to Kevin Warren and Gene Smith and let them know our decision today.”
Chief medical officer Darryl Conway revealed, as of Tuesday, Michigan was not in the "red-red" zone established by the Big Ten, which forces a team to shut down all activities when the total test positivity rate exceeds 5% and the population rate exceeds 7.5%.
"Simply at this point," said medical director Dr. Sami Rifat on Tuesday, "the prevalence of COVID on our team and the impact of COVID on our team is simply too great to allow for the safe return to full practice and full activity."
Michigan's athletic department has conducted 27,578 tests with 214 total positive results (188 student-athletes, 26 staff members). The men's basketball, women's basketball and ice hockey programs, which are all in competition, have avoided COVID-19 issues up to this point.
Contact Orion Sang at osang@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @orion_sang. Read more on the Michigan Wolverines and sign up for our Wolverines newsletter.