It appears that, yes, we are still doing this. And by this, I mean talking about COVID. The four-year anniversary of Rudy Gobert putting the world on lockdown is six months away, yet Aaron Rodgers and Travis Kelce are in the news for differing views on the vaccine.
Rodgers called Kelce “Mr. Pfizer” after the Kansas City tight end did a flu/booster ad, and Kelce addressed the nickname during Friday’s press availability, pointing out that the sidelined Jets quarterback is employed by Woody Johnson — an heir of the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical company, the same company responsible for vaccinating large swaths of the country.
While Kelce tried to play it off like he’s as uninterested in all this as the American population, mentioning J&J says the opposite. At this point, though, both sides get it: The people who trust science are government pawns, eagerly lapping up autism juice, and anti-vaxxers are rapidly going the way of doomsday preppers, getting the raw, uncut “truth” straight from the poisoned well.
If you had former surgeon general Jerome Adams on your BINGO card of unlikely people to wade into the Taylor Swift-Kelce-Rodgers triangle of stupidity, you can mark that tile. In a now-deleted post on X, Adams wrote:
“Player A: Takes unregulated psychedelics, out for season. Player B: Takes FDA-approved vaccine, dominant on field, team winning, dating T Swift.
“I’m no football expert any more than Aaron Rodgers is a doctor but seems player B is ‘winning,’ no?”
Ugh.
Who cares? How long are we going to keep doing this? No amount of cheekiness, or wit will convince either side that they’re wrong. Most vaccinated people have accepted that COVID boosters are the new norm, so stop begrudging them for staying up to date against a virus that — because half of the masses are convinced it’s a fabrication — still very much does exist.
Yet the people who think it’s a hoax blame China for it, but by that logic, if you think COVID is fake, there’s technically no reason to be mad at the Chinese — other than the usual, authoritarian stuff. I should be so lucky to have a government agent controlling my mind; at least that way, it’s all auto-pilot, and there’s no trying to apply logic to human conditions that either can’t be explained, or have yet to be diagnosed.
Honestly, the NFL might’ve lucked out with the injury to Rodgers, because he’s currently at peak pettiness, and has a national platform to go full Eli Cash every Tuesday on ESPN. What’s he going to do? Talk about the Jets? I mean, had he played against Kansas City, the storylines might’ve revolved around the on-field product, and prevented us from this Perfect Storm of idiocy.
And I think about that, but very much wish I didn’t have to — kind of like COVID.