There have been no new positive COVID-19 cases among players for 54 consecutive days, Major League Baseball and the Players Association announced Friday.
A total of 3,597 samples were collected and tested from Oct. 16-22, including players and staff.
The total number of tests to date is 172,740, with 91 positive tests (57 players and 34 staff members). Twenty-one different teams have had at least one positive test during the monitoring phase.
The World Series resumes on Friday night with Game 3 in Arlington, Texas, between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Tampa Bay Rays. The best-of-seven series is tied at 1-1.
Meanwhile, the league came under scrutiny on the day of the third game of the series, when word surfaced that MLB was aware that a player on the Miami Marlins had tested positive for COVID-19 before the team opened a three-game series in Philadelphia in July.
The Marlins' outbreak, which infected 20 members of the team's traveling party and forced the team to shut down for more than a week, was labeled a "super-spreading event."
After the July 25 game, three additional Marlins players received positive test results. The Marlins and Phillies went ahead with their July 26 game and after the game, eight more Marlins players and staff members received positive test results.
In the wake of the Marlins' outbreak – and in the midst of an outbreak that shut down the St. Louis Cardinals for more than two weeks – the league reinforced its directives about social distancing; requiring players and staffers to wear masks on airplanes and buses, within hotels and in all public places; prohibiting visits to hotel bars, lounges and other such public gathering spots and added a compliance officer for each team.
The league also decided to postpone games as soon as a player tested positive. In August, when an Oakland Athletics player tested positive, the league promptly shut down the team until MLB could be assured the virus had not spread. No other players tested positive and the A's resumed play after a five-day shutdown.
