Future potential BKB star Paige VanZant and her husband Bellator MMA middleweight Austin Vanderford recently moved to Florida to train at American Top Team headquarters in Coconut Creek. Vanderford tested positive for COVID-19 a month ago, and after another recent positive test is quarantined and removed from his fight at Bellator 246.
In a recent video on Instagram that closes with “You gave me Corona,” PVZ asked in the caption for a medical diagnosis from fans.
“Well… we are officially sick,” began Van Zant. “We need your help though. So, Austin was starting to get sick and tested positive. I immediately went and got tested and it came back negative… the next day I started getting sick and have progressively been getting worse the last few days. Today I feel absolutely terrible!!!!! I posted the full video on our YouTube and we need some advice. Do I have Covid, or something else? I have a 102 fever and tons of other symptoms. Has he been sick this whole time since he tested positive a month ago. I am so confused by all of this. We are staying home but can’t seems to find any answers. Should I go get tested again???? Please watch, the link is in my bio. LMK.”
This is the video referenced above. PVZ sounded sad that she had to cancel an appointment with her hairdresser due to her husband’s second positive test.
PVZ is scheduled to fight for BKFC in November, but president David Feldman told Steven Marrocco for MMA Fighting that if she tests positive, the fight might be moved back.
ATT headquarters is located in Florida, an epicenter for the pandemic is the USA. The massive gym is open only for professional fighters. Stringent cleaning methods are in place. Owner Dan Lambert has tested the entire gym for SARS-CoV-2. And still there are cases. Thiago Moises and Marcos Rogerio de Lima were removed from Saturday’s UFC on ESPN+ 34 due to positive tests. Vanderford referenced five fighters as having tested positive. But two gym figures who were recently removed from UFC events due to positive tests -Pedro Munhoz and coach Mike Brown – tested negative when retested.
Lambert rejected suggestions that the gym be shuttered until who knows when.
[Florida was] up to 15,000 cases a day, and now we’re under two, last I checked, he said. It’s just a bad run of luck. Everybody’s in close proximity to each other, so if somebody happens to catch it, you can do everything you can to be cautious and put standards in place to get people tested and do temperature checks when they come in and be diligent when people feel symptoms and get them out of the gym and keep them out of the gym until they test negatives. But if somebody is asymptomatic and passes it on to somebody else, the people in their group are prone to get it. You can’t socially distance when you’re getting ready for a fight. It’s going to happen.
People have to live their lives – they’ve got to go out and earn a living. I can’t tell people at our gym, you can’t go to work because somebody else at the gym that you may or may not have worked with got sick. It just doesn’t work like that. Back when this thing first came out and nobody knew how serious it was, or what the long-term effects were of people who got sick or how high the mortality rate may or may not be with the disease, I totally understand shutting down and doing what you have to do, because nobody knows where it’s going. But with the knowledge that we have and the chances of having serious health effects by being exposed to this that are otherwise healthy are just so, so minimal. I don’t have second thoughts. We’re going to run our gym the best we can. We’re going to do our best to keep the gym as safe and protected as we can, and unless the science proves otherwise, and in my opinion, it hasn’t, we’re going to be open for business.
