Covid Kickback If Footballers Keep Rejecting Vaccines, Maybe We Should Stop Picking Them

I’ve been wondering how Nicki Minaj’s cousin’s mate’s testicles are getting on. In a now deleted tweet in September, the singer announced that her cousin wouldn’t get the Covid vaccine because his friend got it and his testicles swelled up. Not only that – he became impotent, and his fiancée called off their impending wedding. Quite the run of bad luck.

- Max Rushden

Coincidentally, shortly after I was vaccinated my wife became pregnant, and without wanting to go into too much detail, my testicles remained the same size throughout. You win some you lose some.

This of course would be funny – if the anti-vax movement wasn’t so strong, if misinformation wasn’t so rife and if vaccine hesitancy wasn’t so prevalent.

Recent reports suggest between three and five of the England squad are not vaccinated – and that Premier League players are quoting conspiracy theories about infertility or Bill Gates’ plans for world domination as reasons for not getting it. As many as two thirds of top-flight players have not been double vaccinated.

What a time to reject science. There is no good time. But now, when many parts of the world are still locked down. Where family members haven’t been able to see each other , haven’t been able to say goodbye to loved ones. Where the only way out is to vaccinate the world. Why suddenly choose to ignore the science?

The science that has guided their fitness, that has fixed their knees, that dictates what they eat, what they drink, when they sleep. The science that has injected them to mask pain before a game, that has flown them from ground to ground . The science that has enabled people to go back and watch them in those grounds.

Should we continue to sympathise with those who don’t want the vaccine? Top footballers have access to the best doctors with the knowledge to allay any fears.