A top prospect for the Boston Red Sox who had just arrived from Taiwan, has been placed in quarantine to guard against possible Coronavirus infection.
Chih-Jung Liu is holed up in a hotel in Fort Myers, Florida, after arriving in San Francisco from Taipei last week. But once he got to Florida, the team decided to take the cautionary step, NBC 2 reported.
“I had been here for a week, and they said I needed to go back to my apartment. I was fine. I stayed away for one day, and that was it,” Liu told reporters.
On his Facebook page, the 20-year-old righthander wrote that he is keeping up with his weight training and “watching information about the team” and reading.
The player said he feels fine, and the team admitted that the quarantine was out of an “an overabundance of caution” because of worldwide concerns over the virus.
Liu is the second player from Taiwan the team put in quarantine. Two weeks ago, the Sox put infielder Tzu-Wei Lin on lockdown after he also came in from Taiwan.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, the U.S. has only seen limited numbers of victims.
“Fourteen cases have been diagnosed in the United States, in addition to 39 cases among repatriated persons from high-risk settings, for a current total of 53 cases within the United States,” the CDC reported. “The U.S. government and public health partners are implementing aggressive measures to slow and contain transmission of COVID-19 in the United States.”
The Sox signed Liu to a $750,000 bonus after he wowed MLB scouts during the Asian Games. He will undergo training and then be assigned to a minor league team.
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