Washington Football Team head coach Ron Rivera has not been shy about vocalizing his players to receive the COVID-19 vaccine and now he is taking aim at platforms disseminating false information about it.
“You got some, quite frankly, f---ing a—holes that are putting a bunch of misinformation out there, leading people to die,” Rivera told sports Illustrated. “That’s frustrating to me, that these people are allowed to have a platform. And then, one specific news agency, every time they have someone on, ‘I’m not a doctor, but the vaccines don’t work.’ Or ‘I’m not an epidemiologist, but vaccines are going to give you a third nipple and make you sterile.’
“Come on. That, to me? That should not be allowed.”
Rivera, 59, underwent treatment last year for skin cancer and is now cancer-free but he is still considered high risk for severe illness if he contracts COVID-19, which made getting vaccinated a no-brainer for him.
Yet, it has been an uphill battle convincing players around the league to do so, which is why the NFL has done everything it possibly can to incentivize getting vaccinated.
Rivera pointed out to Sports Illustrated that there are football reasons for players to get vaccinated, too.
He had two unvaccinated players miss time at camp due to contact tracing and if that were to happen the morning of their Week 1 game against the Chargers, those players would have missed two games (with WFT playing the Giants on Thursday night in Week 2).
“There’s enough positive science out there, if they’re going to tell me that over 600,000 people have died and 99.9% are people that were not vaccinated, well, what about the .1%?” he said. “Well, that .1% are people that had underlying conditions — old age, something else. It’s not young, healthy people. So I don’t know why. And then they talk about all this distrust. Well, if half the world wants it and can’t get it, what’s the problem with us? It frustrates me.”
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