Zero Notre Dame football players test positive for COVID-19 in newest update

Zero Notre Dame football players tested positive for COVID-19 among the 196 tests administered this past week, the program announced on Saturday.

Notre Dame's previous update, on Aug. 29, revealed two positives among 206 tests and required two additional football players to quarantine due to contract tracing. One of those players linked to contract tracing tested positive for COVID-19 but has since recovered, according to the athletic department press release.

One week before hosting Duke, Notre Dame now has zero active COVID-19 cases. The Irish are scheduled to face the Blue Devils at 2:30 p.m. EDT next Saturday. NBC will broadcast the game from Notre Dame Stadium, a 77,622-seat facility that will have its capacity capped at 15,525 to comply with social distancing guidelines. 

Since the football program began testing on June 18, 12 positive tests have been discovered (99.1 percent negativity rate). In accordance to ACC guidelines, Notre Dame will now begin testing members of its football program three times per week during this season.

Meanwhile, the campus positivity rate remains low after the school began phasing in a return to in-person classes on Wednesday. Saturday's university dashboard showed four new cases in 69 tests and a seven-day rolling positivity rate of 1.6%. Of the 608 positive cases among students and employees since Aug. 3, 510 have reportedly recovered.