NFL Covid-19 Vaccine Memo For The 2021 Season Is The Right Call – Forbes

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell speaks to the crowd during the first round of the NFL football draft, ... [+] Thursday, April 29, 2021, in Cleveland. He is seen wearing a sticker that says "Covid-19 Vaccinated." (AP Photo/Steve Luciano)

By Arthur L. Caplan & Lee H. Igel

The NFL wants its teams to play a full slate of games in the 2021 season. One way to do that is by making sure as many players as possible get their doses of a Covid-19 vaccine. To help in that effort, the league is going long on a new policy that could put a crimp on teams' chances for success on the field if players dont vaccinate.

Last year, in the midst of the pandemic, the league implemented a coronavirus health and safety policy that allowed a season to be played all the way through Super Bowl LV. Schedules were crammed to fit postponements. Teams played with weakened lineupsin one case, the Denver Broncos took the field with no quarterbacks at all.

The league relied on education and persuasion to get vaccines into arms. Not this season. If someone goes unvaccinated and causes an outbreak, there will be financial hell to pay.

In a recent memo sent by Commissioner Roger Goodell to all of its clubs, the NFL announced that any game cancelled because of a coronavirus outbreak among a team's unvaccinated players will result in a forfeit. That will count as a loss in the team's record. In addition, players from both teams will not be receiving their weekly paychecks for missing the game. Any lost revenue will be the responsibility of the team forced to forfeit.

That's not all. The memo reminds that each club is obligated under the [league] Constitution and Bylaws to have its team ready to play at the scheduled time and place. A failure to do so is deemed conduct detrimental. There is no right to postpone a game. It also stipulates that there will be no rescheduling of games nor an extension of the 18 week-long season to do makeups.

All 32 NFL teams have at least 50 percent of their players vaccinated so far. As of one week ago, 13 teams were at or above the 85 percent threshold that permits loosened masking, social distancing, and other Covid-19 safety measures in club venues and facilities.

The NFL policy does not require players to be vaccinated. But it does make it difficult for those not that interested in being vaccinated to avoid it. Marginal players and substitutes will think long and hard about not vaccinating, lest they get cut in favor of someone who is. Even fans and stadium personnel will likely want to vaccinate, so as to prevent an outbreak that could lead their team to forfeit. The multi-billion-dollar football betting industry will surely be keeping an eye on team vaccination rates.

But is it right to nudge people, however important to public health, into being vaccinated by penalizing them if they don't? Yes.

Data from hundreds of millions of cases around the world shows that the Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson/Janssen vaccinesthe options available in the U.S.are enormously safe and very effective. Of nearly all of those hospitalized and dying from Covid, 99 percent are not vaccinated.

Yet, a disinformation campaign by the anti-vaccine movement has led many people to being suspicious of the vaccine and hesitant to take it. Some players, such as DeAndre Hopkins of the Arizona Cardinals, are among those who do not feel comfortable with being vaccinated. But science does not back him up. And now neither will his employer.

The NFL and its clubs are private employers. They can impose safety requirements on players, whether those are improved helmets or coronavirus vaccines. By enacting the updated policy, they are doing the sensible and moral thing.

Covid-19 vaccines help achieve herd immunitythe only way out of this pandemic. They help prevent most people who contract the virus from experiencing severe illness, hospitalization, and even death.

Some athletes will maintain that getting a vaccine jab is just following the herd. They are right. But this is a herd worth following.

The tough NFL policy is the right call.

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NFL Covid-19 Vaccine Memo For The 2021 Season Is The Right Call - Forbes