Premier League players and club staff will need to take a lateral flow test every day to get into training grounds under new measures agreed on Tuesday to combat the coronavirus Omicron variant.
The action is aimed at stemming the rising number of positive Covid cases.
The Premier League confirmed on Monday there had been a record 42 positives over the previous seven days.
It is the highest figure recorded since Covid testing began as part of Project Restart during the 2019-20 season.
Previously, the most positive tests returned in a week this season was 16 from 16-22 August, when there were 3,060 tests.
Outbreaks at Tottenham and Manchester United have caused the postponement of two league games within the space of three days, while Brighton, Leicester, Aston Villa and Norwich have all confirmed cases.
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The Premier League has turned down a number of other requests this week for games to be postponed.
Leicester failed in their attempt to have their home game against Tottenham on Thursday postponed, Foxes manager Brendan Rodgers said.
After losing four players to coronavirus concerns before a 2-0 loss to Aston Villa on Tuesday, Norwich manager Dean Smith said there should be a “magic number” for the threshold of cases in order for a fixture to be called off.
League rules say a match cannot be postponed if clubs have 14 or more players available.
However, each request will be considered on an individual basis with a number of factors – including whether the training ground has been forced to close and if the outbreak is controllable – also taken into account.
In addition to the daily tests to get into training grounds, players and staff will now have a PCR test at least twice a week, which was the case last season, before it was changed to lateral flow tests in the summer.
It is anticipated the measures will be implemented quickly in an attempt to stem the spread of the new Omicron variant. Additional mask wearing, limiting of time spent receiving physical treatment and social distancing are also being advised to reduce the risk of further cases.
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With the season about to enter the busy festive programme, clubs will want to avoid postponements which could create a fixture backlog and potentially even leave the league open to demands for rebates from broadcast partners, which had to be paid when the 2019-20 season was suspended at the start of the pandemic.
However, West Ham manager David Moyes believes the schedule is “playing a part” in transmission, adding: “Players are getting very little time to recover and when you are run down, you are more likely to get the virus.
“What we are putting the players through at the moment… that is showing with the number of players who are catching the virus.”