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Stu Forster / Getty Images
Argentine Emiliano Boffelli is one of six players who tested positive for Covid-19 during the team’s training camp.
The difficult became almost impossible, with the disputed New Zealand-based Rugby Championship dealing what seems like a fatal blow from the latest Covid-19 revelations in Argentina.
Argentina’s national rugby union announced on Saturday that half a dozen members of the Pumas squad had just tested positive for Covid-19 and had been immediately placed in isolation. The news immediately plunges the planned reorganized four-nation championship into the highly unlikely category.
Argentina will join hosts Australia and South Africa in a renewed Rugby Championship to be played entirely in New Zealand in November and December, as allowed by government health regulations.
Western Australia has also been featured as a potential base for the championship.
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With the reappearance of the virus in New Zealand and the latest series of government alert level restrictions in place until at least September 17, the event in New Zealand had already entered troubled territory.
But the situation in Argentina could be a death sentence. Not only will the squad’s preparations be severely compromised by the need to isolate, quarantine and assess their own health situation, but there will be great concerns around admitting them to New Zealand, or Australia, amid so much positive evidence. by the virus.
South America has been severely affected by the coronavirus, with Argentina reporting thousands of new cases every day.
“After completing a new batch of PCR tests, in order to minimize the risk of contagion and to be able to start the health bubble, the results showed six positive cases of Covid-19 on campus,” Argentina Rugby said this Saturday.
“All of them [are] asymptomatic preventive isolation and already complying. They are the players Juan Cruz Mallía, Emiliano Boffelli, Bautista Delguy, Rodrigo Fernández Criado, Bautista Pedemonte and Lucas Bur .. “
Argentina had previously announced that forward Javier Ortega Desio had tested positive for Covid-19 before the team gathered for their training camp.
New Zealand Rugby is desperate to host test matches in 2020 as they seek to stop a crippling drop in revenue caused by the global pandemic.
The plan had been to play a couple of Bledisloe Cup events against the Wallabies, probably in Australia, in October, before hosting the Rugby Championship over a six-week period in November and December on this side of Tasmania.
But the health situation in both New Zealand and Australia had already made that scenario highly unlikely, and government officials in both countries took a hard-line approach in their quest to combat the deadly virus.
Now it could be an impossible dream.
