Sheffield United's squad remains fit and healthy after isolating at home

Seventh in the table and preparing for an FA Cup quarter-final against Arsenal when English football was placed into lockdown because of the health crisis, United had continued to work out at the Steelphalt Academy until new government guidelines made that impossible.

Despite observing strict social distancing rules and being required to log details about their health and well-being on a mobile telephone app before entering the complex, United’s coaching staff decided to call a half to the sessions last week.

But the measures they employed to try and guard against contagion appear to have worked so far, with defender Chris Basham confirming during a recent Skype interview that “within our team, no one had the virus.”

Of course, that could change with the number of reported cases nationwide growing daily.

Dr Frank Atherton, Wales’ chief medical officer, has predicted an estimated 80 per cent of people will contract the respiratory disease “at some point,”

"What we've been doing, the strategy in the UK as a whole, has been to suppress that, to delay the onset of that so that the NHS can cope, so that we have time for the NHS to get ready," he said.

"Once the interventions that we've put in place here in Wales and in the UK are lifted, there's a risk that people will then start to become infected again.”