Seattle Mariners place 4 on injured list due to Covid-19 protocols

Four Seattle Mariners relief pitchers were placed on the injured list after a potential positive Covid-19 test on the team was reported, the team’s general manager said in a press release.

The person with the potential positive test was not named, but relief pitchers Robert Dugger, Anthony Misiewicz, Drew Steckenrider and Will Vest were placed on the injured list out of an abundance of caution while the team works with Major League Baseball on contact tracing protocols, Mariners GM Jerry Dipoto said in the release Friday.

Manager Scott Servais told reporters before a game in San Diego on Friday that the team “still has a ways to go” before it reaches the 85% threshold of vaccinated players and staff that will allow for lessened Covid-19 safety restrictions, but added that they are “trending in the right direction.”

Servais acknowledged that the decision to get vaccinated is an individual choice, but also that the virus is affecting the team’s roster.

“It’s real, it’s out there,” he said. “We’ll try to deal with it as best we can.”

He also reiterated a point he said he made weeks ago: even if players aren’t testing positive, being in close contact with someone who is or not being completely vaccinated could cost them time away from the team.

The New York Yankees recently dealt with nine cases in one week among fully vaccinated members of the team. But eight of those nine infections were asymptomatic, a Major League Baseball spokesperson confirmed to CNN.

Dr. Costi Sifri, an infectious disease physician and hospital epidemiologist at the University of Virginia, told CNN that the news from the Yankees is evidence that the vaccines work.

“It’s preventing serious infections in those staff and players with the Yankees,” Sifri told CNN. “Those infections that occurred, the so-called breakthrough infections, importantly were for the most part mild to moderate infections.”