There are plenty of people who feel the media has created unnecessary panic with some of its coverage regarding the coronavirus, but is there really anyone who refuses to believe that the virus is a real thing? As of Wednesday, there was apparently at least one professional athlete who did not believe in it.
In a story he wrote about the confusion that has been brought about this week by cancelations and postponements due to the coronavirus, Chad Jennings of The Athletic revealed that one Boston Red Sox player said Wednesday that he believes the coronavirus outbreak is a hoax. What exactly the player meant by that, we aren’t sure. The player made the remarks in an interview with another reporter, so Jennings did not want to reveal the player’s identity.
Nearly 150,000 people in the world had been diagnosed with COVID-19 — the disease caused by the new coronavirus — as of Friday afternoon. Roughly 2,000 of those cases were from the United States, and that number is unfortunately expected to grow at a rapid pace in the coming days and weeks. While there has undoubtedly been misinformation spread about the coronavirus, it is anything but a hoax.
The Red Sox player who said he believed the coronavirus was a hoax made the comments on Wednesday, so they likely came before Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert tested positive for the illness on Wednesday evening. Gobert’s positive test seemed to really set things in motion for the cancelation and postponement of sporting events, so perhaps the Boston player felt differently after that happened.
Either way, believing that the coronavirus outbreak is a hoax is dangerous. Gobert actually mocked the way people were panicking over the situation before he tested positive, and he has since apologized for his behavior. The last thing the world needs is professional athletes not treating a pandemic with the respect it warrants.
