Coronavirus: St Mirren case will not prevent season kick-off - Jason Leitch
- Published
St Mirren have had one confirmed case of Covid-19
St Mirren's positive test for coronavirus is "not much of a setback" before the Scottish Premiership's planned 1 August kick-off, says Scotland's national clinical director.
The Paisley club's initial seven cases were reduced to one after retesting.
"A couple of friendly games had to be called off, but hopefully, all being well, the league can start on 1 August," Professor Jason Leitch said.
He added that he rates the clubs' testing system at eight out of 10.
But he revealed on BBC Scotland's Off The Ball that a working group is examining a way of making the private testing, which produced the six false positives at St Mirren, more integrated with the NHS's "Test and Protect" system., external
"Just now, that testing is not as reliable as our NHS testing, so we then retest them and put them in the 'Test and Protect' system," said Leitch.
"It may be that if we can get those labs examined and accredited, we can put all of that into one big bundle, but that is going to take a wee while because there's quite a lot of private laboratories offering Covid testing."
On Friday, in response to a member of St Mirren's backroom staff testing positive, the Scottish Professional Football League announced that all 12 top-flight clubs would return to testing twice per week rather than once.
Beofre that, Hibernian's friendly with Ross County was cancelled due to a delay in test results, and Rangers' match with Motherwell was pushed back by two hours for the same reason.
However, chief executive Neil Doncaster said he was still "looking forward with confidence to the resumption of matches next weekend".
Asked if he thought the Scottish Premiership would kick off as planned, Leitch replied: "Yes. They are doing well. There was a little bit of a hiccup, but they are catching the positives and they were very quick to act.
"There is clearly some work to do behind the scenes, but, in the main, the system has worked pretty well and they have gone back to testing twice a week to try to keep these bubbles secure."
Leitch stressed that "footballers and football clubs are not exempt from 'Test and Protect'".
"If next week a random player gets a positive case, they would fit into 'Test and Protect', they would be interviewed and anybody that they came into close contact with - including other players - would be isolated," he said.
However, he pointed out the clubs should have "very strict separation in place" between backroom staff and players. "So I would be very surprised if any of the players are anywhere near that individual within two metres," Prof Leitch added.