Tag Archives: CDC

Unvaccinated Athletes Are “Team First?”

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Two of the things that are most celebrated about our elite athlete heroes are “always puts team first” and “always respects the fans.”  How often have we heard such gushing clichés in sports journalism and chatter?  It seems nothing is more celebrated and revered than proving loyalty to fans and team.

Yet when it comes to COVID-19 vaccinations, a small but significant group of NFL players are refusing to say whether they’re vaccinated, which presumably means that most of them are not vaccinated. 

Three of the most important members of the Minnesota Vikings fall into that category — quarterback Kirk Cousins, wide receiver Adam Thielen, and safety Harrison Smith.  These are not just any players.  This is the Vikings’ highest paid player, their beloved over-achieving homie, and their longest serving player who has been selected for five Pro Bowls.

Last September, when asked about COVID-19, Cousins was cavalier about a disease that has killed an estimated 3 million people worldwide.  Here is what Cousins told podcaster Kyle Brandt, when Brandt asked an impressively difficult to evade question: “On a spectrum of one – masks are stupid and you’re all a bunch of lemmings – and ten is ‘I’m not leaving my master bathroom for the next 10 years. Where do you land?”

“I’m not going to call anybody stupid for the trouble it could get me in,” Cousins responded. “But I’m about a .0001.”


In the local sports news coverage and talk I’m consuming, I’m mostly hearing defense of athletes making the decision to forgo getting vaccinations, which have proven remarkably safe and effective after over 3 billion doses worldwide. I’m paraphrasing, but I’m hearing a lot of this kind of thing from fans, analysts, and journalists about unvaccinated NFL players, even from people who have vaccinated themselves:

“It’s their body, so how dare anyone question their personal decision!” 

“They’re young and in prime condition, so I competely understand why they wouldn’t bother.” 

“How can the NFL suits punish them for their personal or religious decision?” 

Explanatory Note: The alleged “punishment” is that the NFL has some pretty basic public health restrictions for unvaccinated players.  As I understand them, they can’t eat with the rest of the vaccinated team, don’t have as much freedom to be in crowds when traveling, need to wear masks in many situations, and can be fined for violating the public health protocols.  Quite responsibly, the NFL is trying to limit spread from these unvaccinated players, but many players and fans view this as punishment.


Team First?

But hold on, what about that all-important “always puts team first” standard that we constantly spotlight when it comes to our pedestaled athletes? 

To be clear, putting yourself at risk of getting sick or quarantined means putting yourself at risk of not being there for your team. Would we be forgiving if an athlete insisted on engaging in other types o risky behaviors that threatens their ability to be present for their teammates at practices or game day, such as bull-riding, motor cross racing, free solo climbing, or chronic binge-drinking?

And remember, this is an infectious disease that often spreads asymptomatically, unbeknownst to the spreader.  So when tough talkin’ Kirk “If I Die, I Die” Cousins risks infection, remember that means that he also is selfishly putting unvaccinated teammates at significant risk.  If any of those players miss a game or games, or get harmed, it will very likely hurt their team. If all three of them miss games, the problem for the team could quickly become catastrophic.

So much for “team first.”



Respecting The Fans?

And then what about that “always respects the fans” standard.  Even if the athlete is ignorant enough to feel safe being unvaccinated, what about the tens of thousands of adoring fans per week with whom they are sharing the buildings?  You know, the elated fans, many with their risk-regulating amygdala pickled, desperate to get as close to them as possible? You know, the people who make your extravagant salary and lifestyle possible? Is knowingly putting them at risk of being maimed or killed by the deadliest virus in a century really “respecting the fans?”

“Yeah, but players shouldn’t be forced to be vaccinated,” say the athlete worshipping journalists, analysts, and fans.  I hear this one a lot. That goes without saying. It’s a “straw man,” an extreme argument that virtually no one is making, but is trotted out because it’s easy and popular to knock down.

But I’m not talking about mandating vaccinations, and neither is anybody at the NFL or Centers for Disease Control (CDC). I’m just talking about doing the right thing for yourself, your loved ones, your community, your team, and your fans.

I don’t care how well they play this year, I don’t want to hear any more of the cliches about these unvaccinated athletes always putting their team and fans first.  Because right now, we’re seeing what they’re really made of.  Their selfish actions are speaking much more loudly than their sports cliché words.

Minnesota GOP’s Tobacco Tax Cut Is A Killer, Literally

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There is a lot to dislike about the Minnesota Republicans’ tax cuts that were recently signed into law. For instance, increasing the estate tax exemption from $2 million to $3 million is an unnecessarily lavish gift to about 1,000 Minnesotans who won the birth lottery by being born into a relatively wealthy family.  Overall, the Republicans’ tax cuts will compromise Minnesota’s future fiscal stability by reducing state revenue by more than $5 billion over the coming decade. This is a particularly reckless move at a time when President Trump and his Republican congressional supporters are proposing to shift billions of dollars in future costs to states.   The next time Minnesota has a budget shortfall, remember the Republicans’ 2017 tax cuts.

But the stinkiest of the Republicans’ tax cut stink bombs was their tobacco tax cut, because in the coming years it will cause suffering and death.

Think that’s hyperbole?  A mountain of research shows that every time tobacco prices increase, tobacco consumption decreases. The corollary is also true – tobacco consumption increases when tobacco prices decrease.

This is particularly true when it comes to price-sensitive young Americans.

Here’s why that matters:  When tobacco consumption increases, tobacco-related suffering and death increases. Though we don’t hear about it as much as we used to, tobacco use remains the leading cause of preventable diseases and death in America. It causes a variety of deadly cancers, lung diseases, and heart diseases, among other serious health problems.  If you’ve ever seen anyone suffer from one of these illnesses, I promise you will never forget it.

If you don’t believe the legion of public health and economic researchers about tobacco taxes decreasing tobacco use, listen to the tobacco industry executives themselves. In a previously secret document that got disclosed during lawsuits, an executive from Philip Morris, the makers of Marlboro cigarettes, said:

“Of all the concerns, there is one – taxation – that alarms us the most. While marketing restrictions and public and passive smoking [restrictions] do depress volume, in our experience taxation depresses it much more severely.”

Likewise, an executive from RJ Reynolds, makers of Newport and Camel cigarettes, came to the same conclusion:

“If prices were 10% higher, 12-17 incidence [youth smoking] would be 11.9% lower.”

So if Republican legislators think their tobacco tax cut is doing a favor for Minnesota smokers, they couldn’t be more wrong.

Yes, financially speaking, the tobacco tax is regressive. That is, the higher costs of tobacco products that result from tobacco taxes disproportionately impact the pocketbooks of poorer Minnesotans.

But that’s not the end of the story, because the reduction in tobacco-related suffering and death that comes from higher tobacco taxes is progressive. That is, the life-saving health benefits associated with higher tobacco taxes disproportionately flow to poorer Minnesotans.  And by the way, the millions of dollars in savings from not having to pay as much to treat those tobacco-related diseases flow to Minnesota taxpayers and health insurance premium payers.

The bottom line is that cutting tobacco taxes, as Minnesota Republicans did this year, has two major impacts. It causes tobacco executives to profit more from increased sales, and it causes our family members, friends, and neighbors to suffer tobacco-related diseases.

Therefore, when it comes to tobacco taxes, Minnesotan leaders have to be cash cruel to be clinically kind. If the DFL Party wins control of the Minnesota Legislature in 2018, increasing tobacco taxes must be at the very top of their agenda.