Phil Parkinson admits Sunderland are continuously monitoring the advice around the Coronavirus outbreak, and could even stop players leaving the country next month.
Sunderland have a free weekend on March 21 due to Bury's expulsion, and face a three-week period without a game. If enough players are called up for international duty they will have a decision to make over the March 28 clash with Southend, but are almost certain to postpone it.
In that event, it would be usual practice for players not going away with their countries to be given time off, at which point they might normally choose to travel abroad.
But Parkinson admits players will have to be sensible, while the club will be following updates and advice from experts closely.
Parkinson said: "We've had a meeting with our doctor earlier in the week.
"With the international break coming up we'll have players travelling abroad. We're discussing not just the ones away on international duty, but if we do give the lads a couple of days off, there is issues.
"We're closely monitoring the situation ourselves.
"But the players have got to be sensible too. If anyone was to go away but couldn't get back into the country it wouldn't look very good on us as a club, or them as individuals.
"Hopefully things will improve, but at the moment there is no sign of that."
Coronavirus is having a huge impact on sport. Ireland's Six-Nations rugby clash with Italy has been cancelled because of how much it's spread in Italy.
Meanwhile, up the road at rivals Newcastle United, former Sunderland boss Steve Bruce revealed that they have banned handshakes at the training ground on advice from doctors to minimalise the risk of the virus spreading.
As of writing, there are just shy of 84,000 known cases of the Covid-19 virus worldwide, while there has already been over 2,800 deaths.
