By Melody Miller
WFT defensive end Montez Sweat has no intention of getting vaccinated for Covid-19 until more information is available about the vaccine itself,.
Washington brought in an immunology and infectious diseases professor from Harvard to speak to the players Tuesday night, to provide them with more information about covid vaccinations in hopes of encouraging more players to get vaccinated.
Head coach Ron Rivera says Washington’s entire coaching staff and all team employees are vaccinated, and estimates nearly 50 percent of his players are vaccinated as well. He also says that, after hearing from the expert, several other players have decided to get vaccinated.
When asked about the team bringing in an expert to encourage players to get vaccinated, Sweat said yesterday, “I’m not a fan of it. I probably won’t get vaccinated until I get more facts and all of that type of stuff. But no, I’m not a fan of it at all.”
Asked what’s behind his hesitation to get vaccinated, Sweat replied, “I mean, I haven’t caught covid yet, so I don’t see me treating covid until I actually get covid.”
“We are slowly getting more and more players vaccinated,” Rivera said. “It’s a choice, they know. It’s a choice. We are trying to stress the fact that if we can get to herd immunity, we’ll really be ready to get out there and enjoy things so hopefully that will happen.”
Sweat was asked if he’s talked with the coaching staff about getting vaccinated and was asked to share what the messaging has been from the team on vaccinations.
“Well, I mean, obviously they want everybody to be vaccinated to move more freely around the facility and around with traveling and all of that type of stuff,” he said. “But I mean, everybody has their own beliefs and they’re entitled to their own decision.”
After hearing from the expert, Sweat said vaccinations were a big topic of discussion among players in the locker room.
“I mean we talk about it all the time, just amongst my peers and all of that type of stuff,” he said. “A lot of it was going on today. Yes, it’s a constant conversation that we’re always talking about.”
“I think the big thing is we’ve got to be able to facilitate the opportunity for these guys to understand,” Rivera said. “There’s a lot of messaging that’s out there. They get it off of Twitter and some of it is good, some of it is bad. I’m not sure if these guys watch the news as much as I do and try to gather enough information, but we are really trying to help them because if we can get to that herd immunity we can really cut it loose and really be able to spend time with each other.”
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