(Written by kencraw)

(NEW NOTE: All of the below is likely meaningless. It turns out that it was City of Berkeley health department rules that drove all of this. In other words… Cal is playing at a disadvantage to other schools.)

(ORIGINAL NOTE: All of this All of the following is simplified based on the article I saw that indicated “99% of the Cal players are vaccinated”…)

So, why were 24 players missing? The people missing would meet one of the following criteria:

• Have tested positive within the last 10 days
• Have been exposed to someone in the last 3 days who has tested positive
• Have been exposed to someone more than 3 days ago who has tested positive, but didn’t themselves get tested after 3 days

It’s worth noting that the exposure rules don’t apply “if assessment does not reveal high risk.” While I don’t know the specifics of that, I’m sure it means social distancing and masking and the such suggests they weren’t ‘close contacts’.

I think there’s two conclusions we can reasonably assume are accurate:

• The positive COVID test happened within 3 days of the game. I have a hard time believing they wouldn’t do the follow up testing to clear players if the exposure was more than 3 days ago.
• More than one person tested positive. It’s hard to imagine that one person had 23 other close contacts in the 3 days before the game.

What a bad break for the team…