The Premier League says 36 players and club staff have tested positive during the latest rounds of testing for Covid-19.

The league conducted 2,593 tests across two rounds over the past week.

Between 4 and 7 January there were 27 new positive tests and nine more were found during testing between 8 and 10 January.

The number is a slight decrease on the 40 positive tests following last week's rounds of testing.

The news comes on the day Tottenham's Premier League match at Aston Villa was postponed because of coronavirus cases in the Villa camp, and after Scottish football below the Championship was suspended for three weeks from midnight because of the rising number of cases.

Last week, Villa manager Dean Smith and his first-team squad had to isolate and their training ground was closed following 14 positive tests at the club. They fielded a side featuring academy players in the 4-1 FA Cup defeat by Liverpool last Friday.

There has been a sharp surge in cases during the past two weeks. Last week's total of 40 was more than double the number of the previous week, while the total of 76 since 28 December is higher than the total positive cases from the previous six rounds combined.

Weekly breakdown of PL Covid-19 testing
Week	Number of tests conducted	Number of positive results
1 (31 Aug-6 Sep)	1,605	3
2 (7-13 Sep)	2,131	4
3 (14-20 Sep)	1,574	3
4 (21-27 Sep)	1,595	10
5 (28 Sep-4 Oct)	1,587	9
6 (5-11 Oct)	1,128	5
7 (12-18 Oct)	1,575	8
8 (19-25 Oct)	1,609	2
9 (26 Oct-1 Nov)	1,446	4
10 (2-8 Nov)	1,646	4
11 (9-15 Nov)	1,207	16
12 (16-22 Nov)	1,530	8
13 (23-29 Nov)	1,381	10
14 (30 Nov-6 Dec)	1,483	14
15 (7-13 Dec)	1,549	6
16 (14-20 Dec)	1,569	7
17 (21-27 Dec)	1,479	18
18 (28 Dec-3 Jan)	2,295	40
19 (4 Jan-10 Jan)	2,593	36