Italian Serie A side Juventus has announced that two of its football stars Daniele Rugani and Blaise Matuidi have fully recovered from the dreaded COVID-19 they contracted in March.
The Italian giant made the announcement via Twitter on Wednesday, April 15, 2020, with the pictures of the two players.
Daniele Rugani was the first Italian Serie A player to be diagnosed with the coronavirus. Immediately it was discovered that Rugani had the virus, the whole Juventus team went into self-isolation. During that process, Blaise Matuidi was diagnosed with the virus a week later.
In a statement Juventus issued to announce that both players have been certified healthy and ready to rejoin the society, the club said the two players were tested twice and the tests came back negative, meaning that they are no longer carriers of the virus.
“Rugani and Matuidi underwent, as per protocol, a double-check with diagnostic tests for the coronavirus“, the club statement said on Wednesday.
“The tests came back with negative results. The players have, therefore, recovered and are no longer subjected to the home isolation regime.”
. @DanieleRugani and @MATUIDIBlaise have recovered from Covid-19https://t.co/6i7mJlVpPy pic.twitter.com/HRJiS3CZgo
— JuventusFC (@juventusfcen) April 15, 2020
Juventus Wait on Paulo Dybala
Now that Daniele Rugani and Blaise Matuidi have fully recovered from the coronavirus infection, the prayers of Juventus’ fans are being directed at Argentine forward Paulo Dybala whose negative status is yet to be confirmed by the club.
Dybala, Rugani and Matuidi are the only three players in the club that tested positive for the coronavirus in March, days after the league in Italy was halted due to the pandemic.
The statement from Juventus didn’t give details about the status of Dybala but he was quoted as saying that he is in a ‘perfect condition’ and ready to start training.
No definite date for Resumption of Football in Italy
Italy is one of the worst-hit as far as the coronavirus pandemic is concerned. As at the time of publishing this report, the country has at least 165,155 confirmed cases and has recorded 21,645 coronavirus related deaths.
Despite how alarming the numbers are, the good news is that the country has been able to record 38,092 recoveries so far.
To further contain the spread of the deadly virus, the nationwide lockdown in Italy has been extended to May 3, meaning that there is no chance that football will resume this April.
“In order to restart football safely, it is essential at this stage to develop the best possible procedures to resume activity when the whole country starts up again,” Italian FA president Gabriele Gravina said.
“We work without haste but also without resting so that we are ready when the institutions give us the green light.”
