Event was super spreader

MLB knew at least one Miami player had tested positive before Phillies- Marlins series.

Major League Baseball was aware that a player on the Miami Marlins had tested positive for the coronavirus before the team opened a three- game series in Philadelphia on July 24, according to a report released Thursday.

The Marlins’ outbreak, which eventually infected 20 members of the team’s traveling party and forced the team to shut down for more than a week, was labeled a “super- spreading event.”

The Marlins’ information was included by the Centers for Disease Control as part of its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

The initial protocols, which were approved by public health officials, did not call for a team to be shut down after one player tested positive. The league made changes to its protocols and, after two significant outbreaks in two weeks, completed its abbreviated season without another outbreak.

After the July 25 game, three additional Marlins players received positive test results. The Marlins and Phillies went ahead with their July 26 game and, after the game, eight more Marlins players and staff members received positive test results. The Marlins did not play again until Aug. 4.

In the wake of the Marlins’ outbreak — and in the midst of an outbreak that shut down the St. Louis Cardinals for more than two weeks — the league reinforced its directives about protocols. The league also decided to postpone games as soon as a player tested positive.

No MLB player tested positive over the f inal 30 days of the regular season, the league said. The players moved into bubbles for the postseason, with the Dodgers and Tampa Bay Rays set for Game 3 of the World Series on Friday.

According to the report, MLB determined that 168 players and employees had been exposed to the virus during the Marlins’ superspreader event.