Speculation has turned here and there as to the measures applied to teams identifying cases of Covid. On the eve of the start of the competition, CAF clarified the terms via an official press release.
Thus, a team will be forced to play a match, if at least 11 of the 28 called players test negative. If a goalkeeper is unavailable, another outfield player will have to take over and replace his goalkeeper. In application of this measure, Equatorial Guinea will therefore have to play its first match against Côte d’Ivoire, despite its 16 players declared positive for Covid19.
If a team has less than eleven players who test negative, they will automatically be declared defeated and lose their match 0-2. The CAN organizing committee could make other decisions in the event of special conditions during the tournament.