Title : "Why So Many Tennis Players Don’t Want the Covid Vaccine."
link : "Why So Many Tennis Players Don’t Want the Covid Vaccine."
"Why So Many Tennis Players Don’t Want the Covid Vaccine."
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.
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.
Thus articles "Why So Many Tennis Players Don’t Want the Covid Vaccine."
You now read the article "Why So Many Tennis Players Don’t Want the Covid Vaccine." with the link address https://welcometoamerican.blogspot.com/2021/08/why-so-many-tennis-players-dont-want.html
0 Response to ""Why So Many Tennis Players Don’t Want the Covid Vaccine.""
Post a Comment