CLEVELAND — The Browns didn’t dodge COVID-19 on the holiday.

Cleve­land placed defen­sive end Porter Gustin on the reserve/­COVID-19 list Thurs­day, fur­ther weak­en­ing a group already miss­ing star Myles Gar­rett and the lat­est move for a Browns team hit hard by the virus in recent weeks.

Gustin’s pos­i­tive test forced the Browns to close their facil­i­ty for the third day in a row to con­duct con­tact trac­ing. It also altered coach Kevin Stefanski’s prac­tice sched­ule again as he pre­pares the Browns (7–3) for Sunday’s game at Jacksonville.

Cleveland’s defense did not get on the field on Thanks­giv­ing as the unit was lim­it­ed to only vir­tu­al meetings.

The Browns won’t be close to being at full strength this week, and it’s good they’ll be play­ing the Jaguars (1–9), who are deal­ing with their own COVID issues.

With Gustin now out, the Browns will be miss­ing five play­ers, includ­ing Gar­rett and defen­sive end Joe Jack­son to coro­n­avirus, which has been spik­ing in the NFL and across the country.

Start­ing line­backer Sione Tak­i­ta­ki and full­back Andy Janovich are also on the COVID list after test­ing positive.

Top cor­ner­back Den­zel Ward will also sit out Sunday’s game with a calf strain that is expect­ed to keep him off the field for sev­er­al weeks.

Gar­rett also missed last week’s 22–17 win over Philadel­phia after test­ing pos­i­tive for the virus. Ste­fan­s­ki didn’t give any details on Garrett’s con­di­tion Wednes­day, but said he hoped the 2017 No. 1 pick, who has 9 1/2 sacks, will return for the Dec. 6 game at Tennessee.

Also Wednes­day, the Browns placed Tak­i­ta­ki on the COVID list and kept eight play­ers out of prac­tice as a pre­cau­tion. Ste­fan­s­ki had his team prac­tice in shifts inside the team’s field house to try and con­trol pos­si­ble spread of the virus.

Tak­i­ta­ki returned an inter­cep­tion for a touch­down against the Eagles and the Browns had five sacks, includ­ing a safe­ty, to con­tin­ue their best start since 1994.

The Browns did have some good news as offen­sive line­man Chris Hub­bard was acti­vat­ed from the COVID list after test­ing pos­i­tive on Nov. 13. He missed two games.

Hub­bard has played in sev­en games and made four starts this sea­son. He filled in at right guard when Wyatt Teller was side­lined with a calf strain for three weeks, and Hub­bard played right tack­le while Jack Con­klin was hurt.