Twenty-nine UND athletes have tested positive for COVID-19, UND confirmed Monday.
UND says there are 38 active cases campus-wide -- a mix of students, staff and faculty. UND athletic director Bill Chaves said more than 200 athletes have been tested.
"Given this situation, we have paused workouts this week so that we can hit a reset on a number of items moving forward," Chaves said. "Per our existing protocols and university protocols for isolating and quarantining -- which have been in development for the past several months -- those who have tested positive were immediately isolated. In addition, we continue to work with UND Health and the State of North Dakota's Department of Public Health on quarantining any close contacts.
"Since we have begun weekly testing of all of our student-athletes that wanted to workout in our facilities six weeks ago, we have now had two instances where positive cases have spiked and have been the majority of our total cases. The first being after the July 4 weekend and the second coming with Thursday's results which we learned of over the weekend and coincided with fall seasons being postponed."
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Chaves said UND Athletics has been working closely with the pandemic group on campus for months and is following developed protocols.
Forty-two students are in hotel spaces in quarantine or isolation, according to UND spokesman David Dodds. That total includes international students who are required to quarantine after arriving in the U.S.
On Aug. 7, UND announced it wouldn't play football during the fall season. On that same day, the Missouri Valley Football Conference announced there would be no fall league games, but the conference allowed individual schools to decide whether to try to play any non-conference games.
On Aug. 10, the Summit League announced it would postpone its fall sports to the spring of 2021.
Herald higher education reporter Sydney Mook contributed to this report.
