Pitt football team will not announce COVID-19 results

A spokesperson for the Pitt football team said on Sunday that although the team will be testing players for COVID-19, positive test results will not be announced publicly. John McGonigal of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette was the first to report the update from the team.

While the decision is in line with Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi’s historically opaque approach to updating the public on player health, it comes at a time when many programs are adopting more transparent policies.

So far, schools like Clemson, LSU and UCF, among others, have all announced positive COVID-19 tests from football players to the public. As a result, it was revealed that at least 30 players on both Clemson and LSU had tested positive for COVID-19 and were quarantining to prevent further spread.

While positive tests from the Pitt football team will not be announced, the university will announce all on-campus cases of COVID-19 among students and staff members every Friday at coronavirus.pitt.edu. In the most recent update on the site, one staff member and five students tested positive.

The Pitt football team returned to campus on June 8 and quarantined for 14 days. During the quarantine, players were checked for COVID-19 symptoms. Players who had symptoms were required to undergo testing, while tests were not required for players without symptoms.

The news regarding the Pitt football team came amid a spike in COVID-19 cases in Allegheny County over the weekend. On Saturday, 90 people in the county tested positive for the virus, and on Sunday, the county saw a record-high 96 positive tests and was the most affected county in the state for the first time since the pandemic began.