CHARLOTTE, N.C. — For the third time this season, a University of North Carolina at Charlotte football game is being postponed because of coronavirus cases.
Saturday's home game against Florida International University is being cancelled because of coronavirus cases with FIU's program.
The 49ers still have yet to play a home football game at Charlotte because of coronavirus-related cancellations thus far this season.
“We are disappointed for our team and fans, but we certainly understand and respect FIU’s decision,” said 49ers Director of Athletics Mike Hill in a statement sent to WCNC Charlotte. “We will work closely with the conference and FIU to attempt to reschedule this game in December.”
Charlotte, which was looking to play its first home game of the season following its 49-21 victory at North Texas, will now await next week’s C-USA home contest vs. UTEP.
Earlier this week, UNCC discovered a confirmed cluster of COVID-19 cases in its athletics department. Seven cases of COVID-19 involving student-athletes and staff were confirmed within the men's basketball team.
All individuals involved in those cases are isolating with "proper medical care" and the contact tracing team at UNCC is working on notifying any members of the UNCC community who may have been impacted.
University officials wouldn’t specify how many of the cases are student-athletes and how many are staff members. They said the school is following the NCAA rules and the a maximum of 12 hours of contact a week.
A few days after returning to campus for in-person classes, the university detected COVID in the wastewater system of one of the dorms. They tested 155 students and less than 1% of them came back positive.
The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services defines a cluster as five or more cases with either "illness onsets" or positive test results within a 14-day period and a plausible link between the cases when no potential source of exposure is more likely.