A NYT headline. But are we told why?
Only about 50% of professional tennis players are vaccinated. Is there something about the sort of person who plays and excels at tennis that makes them less likely to get the vaccine? I start thinking of stereotypes about tennis players and how they connect to resistance to vaccines. I don't follow tennis at all, but I think the stereotype is that these people are more aggressively cantankerous than average. So, I'm thinking this article might find an interesting pathway into understanding vaccine resistance in the general population.
But I'm searching the text for any sort of answer:
While some players are openly skeptical of the need for a vaccine as a healthy young person, some simply haven’t prioritized it....
That could be true of any professional athlete. Tell me why it's especially true of tennis.
The French veteran Gilles Simon [said] “I’m not very scared of Covid, actually... My basic philosophy is: ‘If you’re afraid of it, you get vaccinated; if not, no.’ It’s still a choice.”...
Anyone might say that. Was there anything tennis-related that made him more likely to say that?
Simon’s contention that vaccination should remain a choice is supported by both tours, even as they urge players to choose vaccination. Other sports have been more successful at getting their athletes to get the shot....
Apparently, it's also a choice in those other sports, so the question remains, why are tennis players the most resistant?
In tennis, where each player is an independent contractor, there is no player union to encourage unified behavior and no general manager or team owner to encourage vaccination for the team’s competitive benefit... Other individual sports are still ahead of tennis, however: The PGA said early this month that its player vaccination rate was “above 70 percent.”...
Well, the PGA has older players... and overweight players. Fierce individualism might take golf and tennis in different directions as the relevant factors are weighed, leaving the difference between team playing and independent contracting as the best explanation, but the NYT article doesn't say that. It really leaves us with no answer, and I feel misled by the headline.
Anyway, I'm blogging this because I think it's interesting as a question: Why do so many tennis players choose not to get the Covid vaccine? Let's talk about the psychology of the professional tennis player and use this to seek better understanding of the nature of vaccine resistance in the general population.
ADDED: Tennis is the loneliest sport. Here's something I quoted back in 2017:
[T]ennis... draws the obsessive and brooding. It is perhaps the most isolating of games. Even boxers have a corner, but in professional tennis it is a rules violation for your coach to communicate with you beyond polite encouragement, and spectators are asked to keep silent while you play. Your opponent is far away, or, if near, is indifferently hostile. It may be as close as we come to physical chess, or a kind of chess in which the mind and body are at one in attacking essentially mathematical problems.
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52 comments:
The real reason it's specifically about tennis players is because of the Saul Steinberg view of the world from NYT. Every year at this time the US Open takes over and in a time not so long ago the events created a bit of magic in the city for two weeks...
Give credit for NYT for recognizing tennis players see themselves as young and healthy and not part of a union or other authority that's forcing them to take the shots.
Ridicule the NYT for failing to recognize tennis players are following the science and choosing not be vaccinated because they are young and not obese and their risk of death is near nill, because the CDC has said the vaccines don't stop the spread of COVID, and that natural immunity protects humanity from future variants and spread far better than any vaccine developed to date.
Maybe tennis players are just smarter than some of you?
Althouse writes, "It really leaves us with no answer, and I feel misled by the headline."
Many of us have felt routinely mislead by the NYT since the 1992 campaign of William Jefferson Clinton.
The notion that tennis is the loneliest sport is fairly preposterous. In tennis, you play against an opponent and the game is largely reacting to your opponents, with little time to think introspectively during play.
In golf, your opponent is the course, and it is completely non-reactive. You have a caddy at the upper levels of the sport, but he or she isn't there to coach you.
I have not read the article. I am skeptical that anybody really knows what percent of tennis players are vaccinated.
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Many years ago, newspapers had editors who might challenge an article's vacuity before publication. Now, however, I have the impression that editors have been largely by computer spell-checking and grammar-checking.
There seem to be many long, meandering articles that are quite pointless -- that could be cut down to about one-third in length or could be entirely rejected.
Former weekend hacker here. My guess is most players don't want to chance that their performance will be diminished by side effects of the vaccine. Other sports at least have an off season when that is not as big a concern but is there such a thing in pro tennis?
"Well, the PGA has older players... and overweight players."
Haven't watched a PGA tourney lately have you? Nine out of ten are in great shape.
Alternative rehajm theory: The psychology of the tennis player is of a rational human who does not benefit financially or personally from the production and distribution of vaccines or the perpetuation of pandemic hysteria in the media, or politically from the perpetuation of pandemic hysteria in order to game elections.
Start with the term "vaccine resistant" itself.
It implies coercion.
What would be people think of those who would call others "sex resistant"?
Cantankerous? You cannot be serious!!
If the stereotype of an entire sport is based on John McEnroe and a whiny Japanese woman then it's kind of weak : )
Overweight players on the PGA tour are very rare these days. Maybe you haven't watched golf since the '80s?
Good news...the plaid, sans-a-belt slacks are gone too!
The U. S. vaccination rate is currently 52.9%. I fail to see that the NYT article on tennis is a story. The vaccination rate in professional tennis is exactly the same as it is everywhere else in the U. S. By the way, the worldwide vaccination rate is 26.9%, according to Google.
There are a lot of reasons not to get the vaccine.
The fact that the government, large corporations and media are censoring information about this disease including legitimate scientific studies from other countries is the biggest reason.
Everyone pushing the vaccine has been caught lying repeatedly and they are participating in active censorship. Everyone also knows that almost all people who actually had the disease and recovered, which is well over 99% of people who have had the disease, are more resistant to COVID than people who have been vaccinated.
People are also aware that the vaccine requires constant boosters and has the same limitations as flu shots.
It also doesn't help that people sense they are hated by our rulers in DC and are noting that these same rulers are incompetent shitheads who are only in power because of fraud.
The whole house of cards is going to fall.
The survival rate for young healthy people like athletes is greater than 99.98%, and of those who get any symptoms at all in this demographic only 3% or so require medical treatment. For everyone under 70 the risk from COVID has ALWAYS been analogous to the flu, another COVID virus with which we’re at a stalemate, unable to rid ourselves of it, but ready each year with annual shots to protect those (like me) who have a knack for incubating flu to create pneumonia. Same with The Common Cold. We have a truce, and a mutual obligation to stay away from others when sick.
It’s strange how as we reach or exceed natural immunity for C-19 the frenzied push to vaccinate everyone goes on. Why? We have won. Delta is less dangerous, as these viruses always are as they mutate. It is not medically necessary or logical for “everyone” to take the mRNA treatment. They are pushing it on those who have natural immunity even though it offers less protection. Kids? Statistically almost none are at risk from COVID and accidents kill more kids than COVID every day. Why the extreme vaccine push?
One tennis player, Caroline Wozniacki has rheumatoid arthritis. One of the mainline therapies for RA is the drug Rituxan. It's been demonstrated that people who use drugs like Rituxan or Ocrevus do not develop and maintain Covid antibodies after having a covid vaccine.
It would be rational for tennis players who take these therapies to not expose themselves to the risk of the vaccine for no benefit.
Tennis is a singular sport in that you play it alone and to be good, you have to be in top level shape. Even doubles tennis first requires that you have put in the work alone, to get good enough to know how to read the court, the shots, and other players. Professional tennis players are among the best athletes in the world. They are in phenomenal shape. They watch what they eat, what they put into their bodies. And let's state some vaccine facts out loud (and let's see if we're allowed to do so):
1) The mRNA vaccines are new to the human body. We have no track record on these. We are the track record. Even though Pfizer's shot was just approved by the FDA, their actual FDA process tests go on through 2024 and 2025. These were 'approved' to get more people to use them and give Biden's almost-mandate a kick.
2) We know that there are many side effects to this vaccine. Though they are a small percentage of those dosed, some of the side effects are very serious- including clotting and myocarditis. If you're an athlete who takes great care of your body and watches what you put into it, myocarditis or blood clots are not something you would take a chance with. Also- of note- there are more deaths from the covid vaccine than from any other vaccine we've ever given out. Again- the percentages are small, but there nonetheless.
3) The vaccine does not prevent you from getting covid. They will, however, allow you to fight it and not get hospitalized- in most cases.
4) The vaccine antibodies appear to wear off within months, so we are now being asked to take a booster- every 5 months.
5) Natural infection leaves you with a load of antibodies that is 13 times more effective than the vaccine.
6) And finally- since the first wave of covid, when the world did not know how to treat it, the actual fatalities have been small- as a percentage vs cases. We tend to count infections, not fatalities.
All of this above is known to anyone who bothers to look- tennis players among them. It is not surprising to me that these people, who have the singular focus to work that hard at their craft, to take that good care of their bodies, would think twice and three times before allowing this to be injected into them.
PS- my wife is an avid tennis player. Not professional, but she plays locally, competitively, and often. She is neither obsessive or brooding. She is, in fact, the single happiest person I've ever known, extremely friendly, and everyone loves her. But...she tells me of some out there who are extremely focused and they are obsessive about their playing- to the point of making them seem unfriendly. Or brooding. So yes, there is that.
Tennis professionals are usually healthy, fit athletes, and their sport does not put them in close contact with their opponents, unlike football, baseball, and basketball. I'm sure the NYT will be digging into the issue of whether any unvaccinated tennis pros have died of COVID. Which could certainly happen!
Tennis isn't a team sport, but it's also a uniquely "heroic" sport in the sense of individual achievement. The top players know that they can control the agenda. Most are quite wealthy, and they know that their earning potential is strictly limited to their own health. So that demands prudent spending, and less dependence on advertisers than you see from the more free-spending American athletes. They are also far smarter than the majority of American athletes, for reasons that are generally illegal to notice. This includes the Williams sisters, who were blessed with an extremely driven and wise father.
So if enough top players drop the Grand Slam, new alternatives will absolutely spring up from the ground. As three and even four vaccine shots are demanded, players will be less and less inclined to poison themselves.
Occam's razor: touring professionals are in a different location almost every week and have to prioritize travel schedules, practice times, and meal consumption over all else. Therefore, they simply put getting vaccinated behind all those other, higher priority items.
More justification to go AWOL during the pandemic.
Imagine an “average” professional tennis player ranked somewhere between 200 and 600 in the world (imagine being in the top 600 of anything!). She’s 22, 5’10”, weighs 140 or less, from the Czech Republic. She never went to college because she was in tennis academies or on tour since age 12. She travels globally 30+ weeks annually, and is responsible for hotels, airfare, meals, etc. for herself and a yappy little dog. If she gets sick during the Tashkent open and hasn’t brought her own drugs, she had better hope she’s lucky at the local pharmacy, because buying medicine that includes a masking agent for a PED can get her suspended.
Sound lonely yet?
"In golf, your opponent is the course, and it is completely non-reactive. You have a caddy at the upper levels of the sport, but he or she isn't there to coach you."
In golf, you're playing against the course. The other players are walking around with you as if they're your friends, and they're nice to each other and don't do anything to make the struggle between you and the course any more difficult. The caddy is a supportive friend too.
Also in the NYT ...
The Grand Slam tournament that signals the end of summer in New York welcomes fans who have been vaccinated against Covid-19 to pack the house when the main draw begins Monday.
Don't want to risk infecting those un-vaccinated tennis stars.
By the way, one important purpose of vaccination is to reduce the spread of the disease to the those not yet vaccinated -- especially those with co-morbidities -- and those who, while vaccinated, might still get sick. Vaccines aren't perfect but in general, more is better.
Other vaccine facts
The vaccines have some potential side effects, sure, but COVID has more, things like long term cognitive decline. One is many times more likely to die from COVID if they have not been vaccinated, innumerate arguments to the contrary notwithstanding; one is many times more likely to end up on a vent. Reasoning mathematically is not some kind of witchcraft intended to subjugate people.
Catching COVID to gain immunity is far riskier than taking the shot to gain immunity. Immunity from infection will fade as surely as immunity from the vaccine, as long term studies of the coronavirus strain that causes the common cold indicate People catch the same strain of colds, every few years. Or is this coronavirus different? It does not seem to be. Booster shots were inevitable, as I used to point out frequently here, not sure why that's such a big deal. I know somebody who has caught it twice, several months apart, a physician's assistant who sees a lot of patients, people call me a liar for mentioning it. And I know somebody suffering from a breakthrough case of COVID, the same people have no problem believing this one. You can't reason from anecdotes beyond noting that both methods of gaining immunity are not perfect.
It would be nice if we lived in a world where COVID did not escape from that lab, sure, but we don't. We live in a world where our choice is to get infected, almost guaranteed, by a virus that was altered to make it infectious to humans, or to take an imperfect vaccine that is still somewhat experimental. A lot of people live in some kind of dream world where they think that they have some other choice than these two unattractive options. Still I think forced vaccinations are a bad idea as a matter of moral values.
PGA golfers are also surrounded by wise *old* men whose insights and advice are highly valued.
Temujin said:
"3) The vaccine does not prevent you from getting covid. They will, however, allow you to fight it and not get hospitalized- in most cases."
Source?
To be clear, you are saying that, under identical conditions, x% of the unvaccinated get covid, and exactly the same percentage, x%, of the vaccinated also get covid?
What, exactly, do you mean by "prevent" or "get" in this context?
Is there some slippery wording going on here such as "the vaccine does not 'prevent' covid, it just makes it so you have few or no symptoms when they get it?" Is this what you mean by saying vaccines "allow you to fight it"?
Pro tennis has a very brief off-season from mid-November through January 5th. The rest of the year they play tournaments that involve matches every other day, and players need to play in a lot of tournaments to maintain/improve their rankings, which are based on their best 16 tournament performances (out of a total of 33). As the vaccine was not available during the last off season, and players are pretty much full out until Thanksgiving and wouldn't want the few days of sickness that comes with the vaccine, I am surprised the vaccination rate is so high.
Professional tennis players are young and strong and may not feel they need the protection of a vaccine. They also have an independent spirit that may make them resistant to authority and reluctant to conform. Beyond that, and in general, I wonder how many people just have a fear of needles, and that definite fear outweighs their vague fear of a virus.
'In golf, your opponent is the course, and it is completely non-reactive. You have a caddy at the upper levels of the sport, but he or she isn't there to coach you.'
The caddy may or may not be your friend, but in most cases he or she is definitely your advisor when it comes to yardage, wind, slope of the green, club selection, shot options, etc.
'In golf, you're playing against the course. The other players are walking around with you as if they're your friends, and they're nice to each other and don't do anything to make the struggle between you and the course any more difficult.'
In many cases players make friends on the tour, but they also make enemies. Players are almost always respectful of one another. Disrespectful players will have a tough time of it...
rehajm said:
"the CDC has said the vaccines don't stop the spread of COVID"
Source? A CDC source, not a paraphrase of a CDC source.
Tennis players are tested for covid, and if positive have to withdraw from the tournament even if asymptomatic. Seems reason enough for a logical player to get vaccinated.
There seem to be many long, meandering articles that are quite pointless
.....and many are blogged right here at Althouse.
'Tennis professionals are usually healthy, fit athletes...'
Tennis professionals are always healthy, fit athletes...
It’s strange how as we reach or exceed natural immunity for C-19 the frenzied push to vaccinate everyone goes on. Why? We have won. Delta is less dangerous, as these viruses always are as they mutate. It is not medically necessary or logical for “everyone” to take the mRNA treatment. They are pushing it on those who have natural immunity even though it offers less protection. Kids? Statistically almost none are at risk from COVID and accidents kill more kids than COVID every day. Why the extreme vaccine push?
Because safety first. That's where everything went wrong.
It's not rational to put safety always first and always before other important considerations. Safety should be one consideration but it should not be the only or even most important consideration. So now in the COVID era nobody even needs to show that certain conduct actually improves safety. It just has to be theoretically possible. Is it *possible* that masking up a toddler could theoretically by the power of the butterfly effect stop some possible transmission and retransmission and help bring an end to the pandemic? Yes. It's possible. Has anyone actually shown that these practices in the real world move the needle even one tiny fraction? No. Evidence is not necessary. All that matters is that it might possibly help make us more safer.
All tennis players over 60 and those that are morbidly obese should take the vaccine.
In golf your opponent is the person/team you are playing against in match play. In stroke play you are playing against your fellow competitors.
In golf the course is the general area including the teeing area the player must play from in starting the hole he or she is playing, all penalty areas, all bunkers, and the putting green of the hole the player is playing…
If that’s too complicated take up tennis…
Althouse writes, "It really leaves us with no answer, and I feel misled by the headline."
So, to put it more clearly: The NYT is a sleazy click-bait site, not a respectable news reporting organization
I hope no one is still surprised by this
Temujin, at 9:05:
1) You seem to be trying to make the case that the mRNA vaccines are insufficiently tested, and may be dangerous. But you cite nothing in support. A billion doses of the mRNA vaccines have been administered in the last year, with no major issues. (Since my side of this debate is always careful with our words, unlike Trump, we say things like, "no major issues" so that people can't you trip us up on insignificant exceptions. The clotting problem seems limited to the Jansen/J&J product; the myocarditis problems are virtually all transient and non-serious.)
2) Ditto. You say/admit that adverse reactions to the mRNA vaccines are rare. They are in fact so rare, that it is nearly impossible to find a medically valid reason not to get vaccinated. And you go on to this lie; "there are more deaths from the covid vaccine than from any other vaccine we've ever given out..." You don't source that one, either. If you relied on VAERS data, you've completely lost the debate.
3) Yes, we agree. I think. I'll state it more clearly than you did; getting fully vaccinated provides excellent protection from getting serious COVID that could lead to hospitalization, intubation, and/or death. It's the best reason to get vaccinated.
4) No, I don't know that to be true at all. And you didn't cite any authority. A booster -- as harmless as the original vaccination -- might be advisable for maximum protection. It does not mean that the original vaccination did not work. We get vaccine boosters for a variety of needs.
5) "Natural infection leaves you with a load of antibodies that is 13 times more effective than the vaccine." You're pointing to the Israeli (Maccabi Healthcare Services) pre-publication study for which even the authors do not claim the sort of authority you are advancing. The combination of "infection plus vaccine" might yield more antibodies, but the protection afforded by vaccination alone is good protection, without the untold risks of the infection and course of disease.
6) Tell it to all of the yahoo rightwing talkradio hosts and militiamen youtube stars who railed against vaccines, and who are now dead. Dead, from COVID, after they could easily have been vaccinated. We're looking at something like 1100 deaths a day right now in the U.S., and just about all of them are people who could have been vaccinated, who should have been vaccinated, and who failed or refused to get the vaccine.
Even if it served a much larger and highly valid public health purpose, it would be wrong to sneer at the current, unvaccinated, COVID deaths. No siree, I won't be laughing or sneering at those cases. Nuh-uh.
Gerda- the vaccine will not prevent you from getting covid. That wording seems pretty clear.
The vaccine does seem to limit the severity of the illness if you do get covid more than two weeks after being vaccinated, meaning less chance of requiring hospitalization. Though to be sure- that can still happen.
Surely you may have read about- in any city in the world on any given day- people who were double (or single) vaccinated who still got covid. It's a daily occurrence in the world of sports- both domestically and internationally.
The really interesting case in golf right now is that of Patrick Reed.
He is a healthy, strong 31 year-old. But hospitalized, and seriously ill, with double pneumonia. His wife put out on Twitter the fact of the diagnosis and the hospitalization, but did not say anything about COVID. And certainly nothing about Patrick's vaccination status.
Absolutely everyone in the golf world is wondering if his illness was COVID, and whether Reed had been vaccinated. And it would be so simple to answer. Patrick would simply authorize his attending physician at Houston Methodist to issue a statement one way or the other.
But Reed isn't saying. If his illness has taken him off the U.S. Ryder Cup roster, that's a story that will cause him to be questioned. If he is part of the team, that is a story that will cause him to be questioned. And there is no good reason to not answer.
Knowing a bit about Reed, I would not accept any answer from him alone. I'd want something from his doctor. And if it were the case that Reed never had COVID, and his double pneumonia was unrelated to COVID, and if Reed had been vaccinated and so COVID was never a great concern, it would be so easy for his doctor to say that in a public statement. No one has done that.
Golf is just as lonely a sport as tennis. It's you versus the course.
Of course there are team events in golf, but that's true of tennis as well. They share a number of characteristics, which is why they often go together.
My guess is that most ATP pros are younger, and they're playing outside all the time, and they are extremely fit and healthy. Nearly no co-morbidities either. For people with those characteristics, their chances of getting the disease are low, their chances of having a serious case are very low, and their chance of getting hospitalized is incredibly low.
Makes sense to me.
---We live in a world where our choice is to get infected, almost guaranteed, by a virus that was altered to make it infectious to humans, or to take an imperfect vaccine that is still somewhat experimental....
... and makes it far more likely that we will get infected by the virus. Like 13x more likely. FIFY Tim.
By the way, there are two ways to play golf: Stroke Play, which is "you against the course". And there's Match Play, which is "you against the opponent".
Stroke play tournaments are the most common televised event. But match play is popular among players, because you can blow up a single hole but still win a match.
"Skins" games are based on match play rules, which is another reason it's popular among duffers like me.
I would say that match play is a closer approximation to tennis.
Tennis requires a lot of cardio. Lots of start and stops.
Of course, the data shows that a healthy individual at pretty much any age without co-morbidities will likely only experience minor symptoms if any at all. I suspect that many people who die that are labeled "healthy" in reality have some other condition that makes them particularly at risk.
My 96 year old aunt got Covid19 and experienced only mild symptoms for a few days.
Mike K is right- over the age of 60, or obese, you are better off taking the vaccine than not taking it. If you have other serious health issues, you should check with your doctor before getting vaccinated, but it is likely you, too, will benefit from taking the vaccine. Outside those groups, the vaccines don't make much sense given the side effects profile or the lack of any longer term safety data. Vaccinating most children is criminally unethical behavior. Mandating vaccines is also criminally unethical behavior. That we now have to fight not to get injected with a new drug is an astonishing loss of freedom, and in only an 18 month period.
How about this, Chuck- Reed's condition and vaccination status is no ones fucking business.
When was your last prostate exam, Chuck?
Tim said, “Catching COVID to gain immunity is far riskier than taking the shot to gain immunity.”
No one advocates catching it in order to gain immunity. That’s a straw man argument. My premise is that most of us under 70 have some natural immunity to it, which is why it didn’t kill many under 70. The average fatality from COVID was closer to 78. With over half of Americans vaccinated and another perhaps 20% naturally or acquired immunity we are at goal: herd immunity. Declare victory and move on.
Tim also said, “Immunity from infection will fade as surely as immunity from the vaccine, as long term studies of the coronavirus strain that causes the common cold indicate.”
So it’s ok to project from scant data to support your straw man? Since you bring up its similarity to the common cold let’s be sensible and apply the same protocol we commonly apply to colds: wash your hands / stay home if you’re sick
All attempts to make COVID into THE PLAGUE have failed and look increasingly silly. Stop it. The only widespread negative side effect of The Vaccine is the urge to hector everyone else to get The Vaccine. By now we’ve all made our choice for whatever reasons. Let it be.
Top-level professional athletes likely do not want to mess with their bodies.
And they can be superstitious about it.
Temujin said:
"the vaccine will not prevent you from getting covid. That wording seems pretty clear."
That is not at all clear to me.
Let's be explicit with a numerical example. Say you have two groups of 100 people, identical in all ways except Group A is not vaccinated and Group B is. Both are exposed to covid in the same way and tested for covid using the same test. Group A has the following outcomes: 50 test positive for covid, 20 develop symptoms, 5 are hospitalized, and 2 die.
What do you think the equivalent numbers are for Group B? Being numerically precise, what is the meaning of the statement that "the vaccine does not prevent you from getting covid."
My understanding is that the equivalent numbers for Group B are (very roughly speaking): 10 test positive for covid, 5 develop symptoms, 1 is hospitalized, and 0 die.
My concern is that the claim that the vaccine does not "prevent you from getting covid" is based on the fact that the 10, 5, and 1 numbers for group B are greater than zero, which strikes me as misleading.
Am I correct? If not, can you explain my error using the above numbers?
Since the subject veered into golf, just gonna drop the fact that I shot a smooth 74 last week : )
---Immunity from infection will fade as surely as immunity from the vaccine, as long term studies of the coronavirus strain that causes the common cold indicate [timfromvermont]
False. Studies have shown T-cell immunity from SARS (1) perfectly viable and vibrant 17 years after SARS hit in 2004. You are a font of error on this subject, Tim.
"Since the subject veered into golf, just gonna drop the fact that I shot a smooth 74 last week : )"
So, how did you do on the back nine?
Yancey Ward said...
How about this, Chuck- Reed's condition and vaccination status is no ones fucking business.
When was your last prostate exam, Chuck?
January, 2021. Annual physical.
And yeah, I know that is becoming one of the stock answers. "It's none of your business." Like, "HIPAA protects me from answering that question." All bullshit.
I don't really care if Reed answers. The more that he refuses to answer, the clearer his situation becomes. Because just about the only people these days who don't want to answer such simple questions are people who have gotten or are getting COVID after the time that they had ample opportunity to get vaccinated. The people who are politically opposed to vaccines and who have refused the COVID vaccines.
Reed doesn't have to answer to me, but I really hope that someone/anyone with authority over him does ask him. The PGA Tour; the PGA of America (which runs the Ryder Cup competitions); airlines; international travel officials; etc. And I hope that in the course of 30 different interviews at the Ryder Cup (if Reed is not too debilitated to play), Reed is asked about his hospitalization 100 times.
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