A week after beginning training camp with the lowest vaccination rate in the NFL, the Washington Football Team is getting its act together, seeing a 24 percent jump in vaccinations, according to multiple reports.
Only a week ago, Washington head coach Ron Rivera was beyond frustrated with his team for coming into camp at the bottom of the league with a 60 percent vaccination rate. Now, according to Nicki Jhabvala and Mike Jones, Washington is up to an 84 percent vaccination rate, a significant increase over the past week in which Washington has seen seven players miss practice time on the Covid-19 reserve list.
While it's certainly welcomed news that more Washington players are getting vaccinated, thus limiting the likelihood of games being rescheduled or forfeited in season, Michael Phillips made an instructive observation about the vaccination rates with the release of last week's numbers:
"For players on the roster bubble, getting vaccinated has become unofficially mandatory — if they're cut, no team will give them a tryout," Phillips wrote last week in the Richmond Times-Dispatch. "That means when Washington cuts its roster down to 53 players, it's possible the 60% number falls significantly. No wonder coach Ron Rivera was so frustrated on Tuesday."
The NFL is taking a no-nonsense approach to vaccinations entering its second season of play under pandemic conditions, making clear that any games that have to be rescheduled to do a Covid outbreak, the onus will be on the team responsible for the outbreak. If the outbreak is caused by an unvaccinated player, his specific team will be punished, possibly through forfeiture of that week's game and additional financial ramifications.
For Rivera, who is immune deficient following cancer treatment last fall, the consequences of an outbreak could be much more dire. The 59-year-old coach has led a concerted effort by team officials to educate its players about the importance of vaccinations in hopes of getting them on board. Such measures have included inviting a Harvard infectious diseases professor to speak to the team in June, and making vaccinations readily available at team headquarters, an offer made again as recently as Sunday.
Other teams around the NFL seem to be grasping the concept much quicker.
