Thursday November 11, 2021
Indignation after confession of vaccination
Rodgers makes everything worse than Kimmich
“Immunized,” said Aaron Rodgers when asked if he was vaccinated. Many interpret this as a lie for the NFL superstar. Because of his rejection of the vaccination, he finds himself in a storm of opinions similar to Joshua Kimmich.
As a quarterback in the NFL, he can play as well as he wants in the future – Aaron Rodgers can probably get rid of the fourth MVP title of his career after his very personal corona vaccination debate. “I think that’s a legitimate statement,” said the Green Bay Packers professional footballer on Tuesday. He laughed at the next appearance on the US talk show, on which he only commented on Friday why he was not vaccinated against the corona virus, contrary to what was assumed. But none of this is so funny for him: Rodgers is in the USA, like Joshua Kimmich in Germany, at the center of a storm of indignation about vaccination.
The comments in the direction of the Super Bowl champion from 2011 are a lot sharper than all the appeals to Kimmich. This is probably also because many people in the USA feel deliberately deceived by Rodgers – or even lied to. Because in August, the team colleague of the German-American Equanimeous St. Brown replied to a reporter question about his vaccination status: “Yes, I am immunized.”
ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith, known for his polemics, recently even described the Packers playmaker, three times most valuable professional in the NFL, as a “national embarrassment” according to his statements on the “Pat McAfee Show”. There Rodgers had justified his waiver of a vaccination with an allergy to an active ingredient in the mRNA vaccines. He also has concerns about his fertility. Therefore, he uses homeopathic methods. So far, there is no scientific evidence that vaccination could affect a person’s fertility.
He also referred to himself as “critical thinker” and campaigned for a means to combat Covid 19 disease that the US authorities explicitly advise against. However, it is suspected, according to an article in the US media “The Ringer”, that the preparation could be helpful in the case of worms in the brain. Rodgers also stated that he saw it as his “moral duty” to violate the mask requirement. In addition, he believed he was in the tradition of the black civil rights activist Martin Luther King and compared his resistance to the mask requirement with King’s call to protest non-violently against the racist practice of segregation, which was only abolished in the USA in 1964. King was assassinated in 1968.
The German national soccer player Joshua Kimmich had justified his previous rejection of the vaccination with “a lack of long-term studies”. Science agrees that given the huge number of vaccine doses given around the world, the safety of the vaccines has been proven. However, according to the findings, side effects occur in a direct temporal relationship to the vaccination. And thanks to the large number of vaccinations, even the most rare side effects can now be diagnosed and their treatment can therefore be promptly carried out.
A little bit of insight, anyway
The whole situation is delicate for the NFL. She has to put up with the accusation of turning a blind eye to Rodgers and not punishing all violations of the corona regulations equally. The league knew he was not vaccinated but did not respond to public rule violations such as press conferences without a mask. Only when Rodgers’ positive corona test became public and stood in a row with other positive cases on the team was there an investigation.
The penalty was fixed this week: $ 300,000 for the Packers and $ 14,650 each for Rodgers and his teammate Allen Lazard for attending the team’s Halloween party as an unvaccinated footballer.
When Rodgers, dressed in a Star Wars sweater and with a black hat on his head, was now back on video in the show of ex-NFL player, wrestler and presenter Patrick McAfee, he gave himself at least some insight. He took “full responsibility for my misleading comments,” he said, referring to the “immunized” statement from the summer. In terms of content, however, he did not move an inch from his position. “I stand by what I said and the reasons I made the decision,” he said.
He did not want to be understood as an ambassador. He has the feeling that he has reached the other side of his corona infection. He is fine. He still has to do tests before he can play football again, at the earliest at the home game on Sunday against the Seattle Seahawks. “I’m an athlete, not an activist. I’m going to do what I do best again, and that’s playing ball,” Rodgers said. For a few days it has become much less likely that he will receive another personal award for this.