Leinster head coach Leo Cullen says the risks presented by the Covid-19 situation has made it a "tricky time" as the province confirmed that two senior players have tested positive for the virus and a number of other players have been identified as close contacts.
It comes in the wake of the postponement of last Saturday's Guinness Pro14 fixture against Munster, while Leinster are due to face Connacht this coming weekend.
One Leinster player tested positive after a round of PCR testing on Monday, while a second player was tested outside the PCR testing window, which also returned a positive result.
"We tested yesterday, so today was our first day back in the building. Obviously the player who has tested positive is now isolating, so today will be the first day we'll train. We'll truck on now again," said Cullen at Leinster's virtual press conference.
"Some of the close contact bit is even whether it's a friend or a family member a player - or staff member for that matter - may have been in contact with, so it's a very tricky time."
He also touched on the difficulties presented in the current Covid situation for society at large beyond rugby.
"With talk of vaccines and the optimism with that, it does come with people letting their guard down to a certain extent and as you've seen with the case numbers on a daily basis. Generally the trend has gone upwards, which is a bad thing," he said.
"Obviously as the cases are more prevalent in society, then all of us are more exposed to that, particularly at this time of year which is a very social time of year with family and friends meeting up and wanting to continue on, I guess, past traditions. As we know, it's a very different time we're living in currently.
"The time was nice for us with family for Christmas but we knew there were certain risks that come with that as well.
"Hence, we've gone about the testing process this week. It's good news in terms of - bar one person who's isolating at the moment - this current batch of testing."
Cullen backed the decision to call off the Leinster's game against Munster which had been due to take place on St Stephen's Day but was postponed by the Pro14 two days in advance after the province investigated a round of PCR test results.
Those subsequently all came back negative but the Leinster coach felt the uncertainty made it difficult to go ahead with the fixture.
"We haven't trained since the start of last week. We would have tested last Tuesday where there were some positives last week. Obviously that was leading into the (Munster) game but some of those positives were retested and came back negative, so that created a bit of uncertainty," he said.
"It wasn't until late on Thursday - and the game had been called at that stage - but I think it was the correct decision to make.
"It was one of those decisions you could have played on but there was still so much uncertainty. Covid is very prevalent at the moment as we're all reading and hearing about, so the welfare of all the people involved here - staff and players [is important]."
Up next for Leinster will be the visit of Connacht to the RDS on Saturday in the latest Pro14 interpro.
Cullen envisages a tricky fixture, especially with a number of former Leinster players within the Connacht camp.
"There's that extra bit in the game because of some of that familiarity," he said.
"There are a lot of players playing for Connacht who are ex-Leinster guys, whether that's come through the academy underage system or some senior players, those guys are hugely motivated, so it's important that we understand that in terms of our preparation going into the game."
On the longer-term injury front, he confirmed that he is hopeful that Ireland internationals Johnny Sexton and Tadhg Furlong will be available for selection again "in the next few weeks" and that the latter is making "steady progress".
