The Red Sox aren't taking any chances when it comes to the coronavirus. The team has quarantined right-handed pitching prospect Chih-Jung Liu after he traveled from Taiwan to their spring training facility in Fort Myers, Fla., according to The Boston Globe.
It's the second time this month the organization has quarantined a player in response to the outbreak of the virus. Infielder Tzu-Wei Lin, also from Taiwan, was the first.
“I had been here for a week and they said I needed to go back to my apartment," Lin told The Globe. "I was fine. I stayed away for one day and that was it.”
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According to the Globe, Liu, 20, does not have any symptoms of the virus. He wrote on his Facebook page that the Red Sox are providing him with three meals per day. He is reportedly passing time in his hotel room by reading, weight training and going on an "occasional run."
The 6-0, 185-pound pitcher signed with the team in October as an international free agent, per SoxProspects.com. He received a $750,000 signing bonus. Liu said he feels fine and is scheduled to join the team on Saturday.
The Red Sox's decision to quarantine prospects comes amid new warnings from federal health officials about the virus spreading throughout the United States. The CDC announced Tuesday that Americans should brace for a potential pandemic.
“It’s not so much of a question of if this will happen in this country anymore but a question of when this will happen — and how many people in this country will have severe illness,” said Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.
“We are asking the American public to prepare for the expectation that this might be bad.”
Currently, there are 57 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Taiwan has 31.
The virus is believed to have originated from a wildlife market in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019. It has infected about 80,000 people and killed more than 2,700, the vast majority in China.