Nearly a month after their UAE tour (opens in new tab) was cancelled due to the Covid 19 coronavirus outbreak, eight members of UAE Team Emirates, including Fernando Gaviria and Max Riches, remain in isolation in an Abu Dhabi hospital.

According to L'Équipe (open in new tab), two UAE Team Emirates staff members and four representatives of Gazprom Rusvelo are also quarantined: Dmitry Strakhov, an unnamed rider, and two staff members.

The UAE Tour was cancelled with two stages remaining due to a suspected Covid-19 infection during the race, and all riders, support staff, race organization, and media were quarantined to a hotel in Abu Dhabi while they await testing.

Two days later, 18 of the 22 competing teams were allowed to leave the United Arab Emirates, but Gazprom Rusvelo, Cofidis, and Groupama-FDJ remained quarantined.

Cofidis and Groupama-FDJ were given permission to return home on March 8, as were most of the players and staff from UAE Team Emirates and Gazprom Rusvelo.

Gaviria and Richeze announced on social media that they tested positive for coronavirus on March 12 and 13, respectively, while Strahov also revealed his diagnosis on social media.

Richeze's brother Adrián provided an update to the Argentine newspaper Diario de Cuyo (opens in new tab) over the weekend.

"He is fine and reassures us," Adrián Richeze said. 'At first it was very difficult, because very little was known about the subject. He is fed up with the situation, but he knows that the only way to definitively heal is to complete this entire period of examination in which he is hospitalized.

Adrian Richez added that his brother is more concerned about the situation in Italy because his wife and daughter are based in Bassano del Grappa in northeastern Italy. The nearby province of Lombardy is the epicenter of the pandemic, and the entire country is under a blockade to contain the spread of the coronavirus.

Jocsen Fernandez, coach of UAE Team Emirates, returned to Spain from a tour of the UAE.

In an interview with Colombian radio station Caracol Radio (opens in new tab), he described Gaviria's condition as "very positive, he is really well, he is in perfect health," and said the sprinter would leave the UAE in a few days.