The New York Yankees are reportedly in the midst of a COVID-19 outbreak, with their starting shortstop the latest to be added to the growing list of positive cases.
Yankees shortstop Gleyber Torres tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday afternoon. Torres is vaccinated and has reportedly not exhibited symptoms. He is now the eighth team member and first player to test positive for the virus and, according to USA Today, all eight individuals are fully vaccinated. Seven of the eight are asymptomatic.
Of the eight who have tested positive, three have been Yankees coaches — Matt Blake, Phil Nevin, and Reggie Willits — while the remaining four are members of the team’s traveling staff.
Torres previously contracted COVID-19 in December 2020 and was placed on the COVID-19 injured list, which applies a mandatory quarantine period for players.
“This variant that we’re dealing with has been pretty aggressive. But thankfully, the information I’ve been provided is the benefit that we have been vaccinated in most cases has really taken root. I take a lot of great comfort that that’s the purpose of the vaccine, to protect,” General manager Brian Cashman said on Thursday. “And it appears to be doing that, despite still having the ability to spread, which we were educated with that prior to the vaccination.”
According to ESPN, most members of the Yankees received the Johnson & Johnson one-shot vaccine in April, or during spring training. The Johnson and Johnson vaccine has been found to be 74% effective against asymptomatic COVID-19, according to the University of California San Francisco, but is even more effective against severe COVID-19.
The Yankees have been able to relax some of the COVID-19 protocols in recent weeks after they met the required 85% vaccination threshold.
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Cashman went on to say that the outbreak should serve as proof that the vaccines do work.
“When you read the fine print, they tell you that you still could get COVID and the vaccine is to protect you from symptoms, either to eliminate them altogether and protect you,” Cashman said “It’s not full protection … but the one thing I take from this is I believe the vaccine is working. We can take great comfort, thankfully, that all who were vaccinated with the J&J, provided from two different states, the one batch in New York, and the other batch in Florida, at various different times, one in March versus obviously earlier in April, we believe it has protected us from obviously something severe or something much more difficulty to be handling than we currently are.”
Under Major League Baseball guidelines, Torres and the other members of the Yankees organization who tested positive for COVID-19 will have to remain in quarantine for a minimum of 10 days.
Since the outbreak, no Yankees games have been canceled or postponed, which is a real change from Major League Baseball’s approach to the 2019-2020 season.
“I think if this was last year, it would be a canceled game without questions,” Tampa Bay Rays pitcher Tyler Glasnow said. “I think they have a good grip on what’s going on.”
The Yankees go to Baltimore this weekend for a three-game series against the Orioles.
Joe Morgan is the Sports Reporter for The Daily Wire. Most recently, Morgan covered the Clippers, Lakers and the NBA for Sporting News. Send your sports questions to [email protected].
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.