DRESDEN, May 22 — German second division club Dynamo Dresden, where the entire squad is nearing the end of a 14-day quarantine after three players tested positive for Covid-19, say a fourth player plus a staff member have returned positive tests.

However, the club, who are bottom of the 2.Bundesliga, said health authorities had not extended the collective quarantine and that only the infected pair would be isolated.

The club said that all other members, including the three players who had previously tested positive, had returned negative results in the fifth batch of testing and could begin group training tomorrow.

The club announced its first positive case on May 4 followed by two more five days later. At that point, the local authority, which has the final say, ordered the entire squad to be quarantined.

As a result, when the 2. Bundesliga resumed on May 16, their first two matches had to be postponed while a third match was later called off as well.

They are now due to resume their campaign at home to VfB Stuttgart on May 31 and the squad will be isolated in a hotel until then.

Team doctor Onays Al-Sadi said that the local authority’s decision to quarantine the entire team had paid off, despite criticism that it was excessive compared to other regions of Germany where only the infected players had been quarantined.

"It shows that the Dresden health authority has acted absolutely responsibly and correctly with the much-discussed measure of domestic quarantine for our team, as this enabled us to break through an infection chain within our team at an early stage,” he said.

Dresden, who won the former East German league eight times when they also became regulars in European competition, have 24 points, three adrift of 17th-placed Karlsruher. — Reuters