2 Gardner-Webb student-athletes test positive for COVID-19, AD says

BOILING SPRINGS, N.C, — Two Gardner-Webb student-athletes are in quarantine after testing positive for COVID-19, their athletic director said.

School administrators confirmed the cases in an email sent Monday to students and alumni. They are the first coronavirus cases reported on the school’s campus.

Gardner-Webb student-athletes were first permitted on campus for voluntary workouts on June 8.

The school said the first case was confirmed on July 12. Prior to being diagnosed, the student-athlete had already been in quarantine for six days. The second student-athlete diagnosed with coronavirus had been in quarantine since July 10 before receiving word of their positive test on Monday.

From the time symptoms are reported, the student-athletes were separated from their peers as a precautionary measure. Gardner-Webb athletic director Chuck Burch said one student is quarantining on campus while the other is in isolation off-campus.

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“It’s an extensive screening process involving temperature checks and monitoring,” Burch said. “If someone reports they have symptoms, we monitor them for a designated period of days and then test.”

The NCAA first began allowing student-athletes back on campus in early June, though Gardner-Webb took a slower, more deliberate approach in phasing them back in. Participation began on a voluntary basis, according to Burch, with other student-athletes returned late last month as part of summer school’s second session.

“At first, it was mainly football, men’s and women’s basketball players who were on campus for voluntary workouts,” he said. “With the start of the second session of summer school, we started seeing more student-

Garder-Webb has made efforts to stop the spread of COVID-19 by limiting the number of players in the weight room at one time and thoroughly sanitizing all items prior to the start of a new session, among other policies. Those efforts will continue, Burch said.

Gardner-Webb and the Cleveland County Health Department are partnering in an effort to trace those the infected may have come in contact with.

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