This is completely reckless and stupid.
The Third England v West Indies Test at Old Trafford finishes on Tuesday 28 July.
The First England v Pakistan Test at Old Trafford starts on Wednesday 5 August.
The apparent proposal is that the players are permitted to go home from Tuesday 28 July until Friday 31 July, allowing a 5 day period back in the bubble prior to the start of the Pakistan Test. I'm guessing that they have Coronavirus swabs performed on Saturday 1 August and Tuesday 4 August.
This is stupid, unscientific and dangerous.
We know that a person may not test positive for up to 14 days after they catch the virus. The majority of people in the few places with proven contact tracing seem to test positive between the 3rd and 7th day after infection. (The only valid data on this comes from Singapore, Taiwan, Australia and New Zealand, as the other countries have higher numbers of infected people and inferior contact tracing).
So let's look at a scenario here.
On Tuesday 28 July Joe Root goes home to his wife and baby. Unbeknown to him, his wife caught the virus on Monday 27 July (take your pick between from her parents, a community health visitor etc). She doesn't become infectious - or positive - until the Friday.
Mrs Root is young and healthy and does not have any symptoms apart from tiredness, that she associates with having a newborn at home.
On Friday 31 July, Joe catches the virus from Mrs Root. He then returns to Old Trafford's Hilton Garden Inn hotel, where he mixes with players from both teams.
He is a sportsman. He never develops symptoms. His first retest on Saturday 1 August (infection day +1) is obviously negative.
His second retest on Tuesday 4 August (infection day + 5) is also negative - it's too soon.
He interacts normally with players and coaches from both teams.
On the final day of the First Test - Sunday 9 August - a number of players on both teams have symptoms of a mild cold. Every player on both teams is tested for Coronavirus - and eight of them test positive.
The teams cannot travel to Southampton as planned on Monday 10 August to prepare for the Second Test. The players remain in isolation at the Old Trafford hotel, and the Second Test is postponed.
That day, two of the coaches have to be hospitalized. England's Chris Silverwood is only 45 years old, but he's obese. He stabilized is hospital and is discharged 6 days later.
Pakistan's Mushtaq Ahmed is not so lucky. He is 50 years old but is morbidly obese: 5 feet 4 tall but 14 stone in weight. He is admitted to Manchester Royal Infirmary and quickly transferred to ICU, where he dies after a two week stint on a ventilator.
Pakistan signed up to play in a biosecure bubble. They didn't agree to play Russian Roulette in the country with the advanced world's worst Covid-19 mortality rate.
