Is the significant number of cases a sign of COVID in the world around us, or is there something different about sports competitions? “There’s not a lot of places we test as frequently as we do with professional sports and college sports,” said Dr. Costi Sifri, a UVA infectious disease physician and hospital epidemiologist. He said it’s not a bad thing that frequent testing of athletes is picking up what have often been notable numbers of asymptomatic cases.