MOSCOW, August 31. /TASS/. Over 130 players from the clubs of the Russia-based Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, the league’s press service reported on Monday citing KHL President Alexei Morozov as saying.

According to the statement from the KHL’s press office, 57 players out of the 131 diagnosed with COVID-19 have already recovered from the virus.

"As of August 30, the total number of infected athletes playing in KHL clubs stands at 131 and 57 of them have already recovered and resumed with training sessions," Morozov said.

"I would like to point out that all players had a mild form of the illness; they were all under a constant supervision of doctors and KHL’s medical staff," the KHL chief added.

The KHL Board of Directors announced on August 7 that the 2020/2021 season, which is set to kick off on September 2, would see the participation of 23 clubs from six countries compared to 24 clubs during the previous season.

The list of the participating hockey clubs (HCs) for the next season was reduced from 24 to 23 after Admiral Vladivostok HC announced earlier in the year a decision to quit the league due to financial difficulties, because the bulk of the regional budget in the Primorye Territory, where the club is stationed, was allocated to fight COVID-19.

The Kontinental Hockey League was founded in Russia in 2008 and listed 24 professional ice hockey clubs until this year, namely from Russia, Belarus, China, Finland, Kazakhstan and Latvia.

In late May, the KHL announced that it had informed all of the league’s participating clubs that September 2 was the provisionally set date for launching the 2020/2021 season.

The league’s press office said then that the starting date of the next season would first of all depend on the nationwide requirements in regard to the ongoing global spread of the novel coronavirus and on the gradual lifting of restrictions, which are in force in all regions across Russia as well as in countries, which many foreign KHL players come from.

COVID-19

In late December 2019, Chinese officials informed the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus - named COVID-19 by the WHO - have been reported in every corner of the globe, including Russia.

On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. According to the latest statistics, over 25,400,000 people have been infected worldwide and more than 850,870 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 17,716,700 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.

To date, 995,319 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Russia, with 809,387 patients having recovered from the disease. Russia’s latest data indicates 17,176 fatalities nationwide. Earlier, the Russian government set up an Internet hotline to keep the public updated on the coronavirus situation.