Reports: Team Aster contracts COVID-19, criticizes PGL

Chinese Dota 2 team Team Aster announced today that six members of their team contracted COVID-19 at the International 10 in Bucharest, Romania.

These members include:

The Team Leader
Du “Monet ” Peng
Lin “Xxs” Jing
Ye “Borax” Zhibiao
Cheng “Mad” Han (coach and analyst)
Team Videographer

Team Aster contracts COVID-19

Team Aster’s post on Weibo was first translated in a report by esports.gg. This report mentioned that the Team Leader did not leave the hotel except for grocery runs. The team notified the tournament organizers of the situation and have begun self-quarantining for the time being. The tournament organizers will be working closely with Team Aster until this situation is resolved.

According to the report, Team Elephant, Invictus Gaming and Vici Gaming have stated on their Weibo that they are all COVID-19 free. All members are taking PCR tests and safety precautions.

LaNm criticizes tournament organizers

Team Captain Zhang “LaNm” Zhicheng expressed his discontent surrounding the COVID-19 precautions taken by tournament organizer PGL in a now-deleted Weibo post. According to a translation on Twitter by Tiffani “Oling” Lim, PGL has not provided adequate testing for teams prior to their arrival to Romania. Teams were also not provided in-house food or water. This means that members had to step out of the hotel in order to make grocery runs. With the surge of COVID-19 cases in Romania, every moment stepping out of the hotel presents a risk to the players.

LaNm: "He's down with an actual fever, organizers promised medications since yesterday but no updates thus far, didn't get in touch with us on how to get to the hospital either, just told us to self-quarantine" #TI10

(Source: LaNm's Weibo) pic.twitter.com/ioW5A8bu8z

— Tiffani 'Oling' Lim (@babyolingg) September 29, 2021

According to further translations by Oling, Zhang “xiao8” Ning, the coach for team PSG.LGD also stated that the current bootcamp location was set up by PGL. However, these are not the final planned bootcamps for all Chinese teams. According to an esports.gg report, Aster’s team leader went to get a COVID-19 test after feeling unwell, instead of PGL arranging for regular COVID-19 tests.

An organizer-imposed quarantine period for all foreign teams upon arrival / a 14-day pre-event bubble with frequent testing would've been so much better for the safety and well being of everybody. #TI10

— Tiffani 'Oling' Lim (@babyolingg) September 29, 2021

The sentiment around the situation is that PGL invited several Chinese teams to a bootcamp they organized. However, the bootcamp only provided a location to practice and did not account for other precautions.

LaNm: "Why am I criticizing PGL? We wanted to fly in just before the start of the tournament, but PGL insisted that every team arrived at the same time as 'bootcamp will be provided'. Yeah they provided the bootcamp alright, but it's just that and nothing else." #TI10

— Tiffani 'Oling' Lim (@babyolingg) September 29, 2021