MLB announces six new COVID-19 positives in past week

NEW YORK: Six individuals, five of them Major League Baseball players, have tested positive for COVID-19 among 10,548 samples returned in the past week, MLB and its players union announced Friday.
The tests in the week that concluded Thursday showed a 0.05% positive rate that included one staff member.
Specific players and teams involved were not identified under MLB policy.
Counting all monitored samples since players moved beyond the intake phase, 23 positives have been returned from 17,949 tests, a 0.1% positive rate.
In all, 18 of those 23 were players. A total of 13 clubs have had a positive test in the monitoring period.
Counting intake screening and monitoring tests by MLB, there have been 93 positive tests, 80 of them by players, from 21,701 samples, a 0.4% positive rate since June 27.
The MLB season, which has been shortened to 60 games per club due to the coronavirus pandemic, is set to begin Thursday with the New York Yankees at reigning World Series champion Washington and the San Francisco Giants at the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Teams will play in home stadiums without spectators due to the virus outbreak, which prevented the start of the 2020 campaign in March.