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In this media availability, Kyle Dubas gives a timeline on the Maple Leafs outbreak. It’s very interesting to hear the testing timeline.

The important part is this:

Two of the four [Maple Leafs players who have tested positive - Wayne Simmonds, Jason Spezza, Alexander Kerfoot, John Tavares] are entirely asymptomatic, one of the four had some mild symptoms at the beginning, and those have dissipated, and one had some fever, chills and body aches.

Dubas also says (filmed at approximately 4:30 pm) that they are awaiting further PCR tests on the entire team before they depart with the people who test negative to Toronto now that both final games of the roadtrip have been cancelled. They are still coordinating travel for any positive cases.

During questions from the media, Dubas revealed that 10 players on the Marlies have tested positive. This means that even though the Maple Leafs were not cap crunched and could have called up a host of forwards for tonight’s game, they may not have had any options due to the outbreak in the AHL.

Dubas addresses the fact that, even though the Leafs had their own protocols that were strict for a while now, they still had positive cases. He has a lot of good things to say about the players through this entire pandemic, and everything they’ve done to help make hockey possible.

At this time, the Leafs are not “shutdown”, so they could practice if their test results show no more positives. This is speculative and subject to change at any moment. As of now, the Thursday game is still on, but of course, the St. Louis Blues are also experiencing Covid problems. UPDATE: see breaking news above, this seems highly unlikely now.

Of note, the Leafs had an optional skate this morning for all players who were negative, and tested negative in that morning’s rapid test. That was their first skate since Thursday. Those players, per Dubas, were concerned about the implications of travelling to Seattle, testing positive and missing the holidays with their families. This is a key concern for all teams, that they might end up stuck on the wrong side of the border.

There is a question on here about asymptomatic and vaccinated players “just playing”. Dubas does not want to really answer this, and understands he’s not really able to give a definitive answer. But he does discuss how they treat players now with other illnesses. He says he gets skeptical when people get definitive about these things, and as a personal aside here — I’ve had some issue with Dubas lately, but this statement is what makes me trust him. He might make mistakes because we all do, but his head’s in the right place.

As of now, Health Canada is clear that asymptomatic people do transmit the virus and measuring their impact on the progress of the pandemic is difficult. https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/diseases/2019-novel-coronavirus-infection/health-professionals/public-health-measures-mitigate-covid-19.html

That’s all for now. As they say at Metro: this is a rapidly evolving situation. We’ll try to keep up with it.