COVID VACCINES AND SPORT
While well intentioned, Graham Unsworth’s letter (Mailbag, 10 January) contains some inaccuracies.
Mainstream media have been reporting an apparent excess of post-Covid-vaccination, footballer deaths, from cardiac arrest. A quick Google search will confirm that.
The quoted figure seems to be 108 footballers having died post-Covid vaccination. This figure first appeared in a Hebrew-language newspaper ‘Real Time News’, a media organisation with the self-stated “deep sense of mission and a desire to bring about a fundamental change in public consciousness”.
Of the 108 names provided by Real Time News, many, it turned out, were not footballers and not all were registered with their relevant sporting bodies. Indeed, Rugby League players are listed, as are people from sports as diverse as American Football, archery, cricket, handball, table tennis and volleyball. Some are coaches. One was a golf caddie.
Almost half had underlying heart conditions. Other deaths were by suicide, accident and traumatic brain injury. Some were unvaccinated, while some died prior to the pandemic.
Three of the cases did involve speculation by coroners of vaccine involvement, but none could be confirmed. There is, of course, a very rare potential risk of myocarditis and pericarditis (heart conditions) in those vaccinated with Pfizer and Moderna (about 0.000001% of the risk of dying compared with catching Covid). No evidence can be found that exercise through sport increases that risk.
Sudden cardiac death in the general population (which includes sportspeople) is well understood. About twelve fit, otherwise healthy, young people die from cardiac arrest in the UK every week. This figure is well known and rarely reported.
It is possible that people have taken note of such deaths recently because we are paying more attention to medical news in the current climate and a causal link that does not exist has been made erroneously.
Players – just like the rest of the British population – have every right to choose not to be vaccinated. Mandatory adult vaccination in the UK ceased in the 19th century when opposition to smallpox vaccine (after it had reduced deaths to low levels) brought pressure to bear on the government. Those same players should, however, weigh the relative risk of a life-threatening side-effect of Covid vaccination (vanishingly small) with the very real risk of dying from Covid or passing the virus on to somebody more vulnerable than themselves.
One further point Graham makes is that colds are caused by a lack of sunlight, which provides vitamin D. This is only partially correct. Vitamin D does have a measurable immunological effect on humans and sunlight is one source.
However, the reason people get more colds in winter is because we tend to congregate indoors where it is warm and in more humid conditions. Viruses thrive in this environment and with humans closer together than they are in summer and with less ventilation, colds are more easily passed on.
Michael O’Hare, Northwood, Middlesex
GOOGLE’S MISLEADING SEARCHES
I would not normally address non-Rugby League matters to this Mailbag, but I feel compelled to address comments submitted by Graham Unsworth in last week’s issue.
Whilst I believe fully in the concept of free speech, I was nevertheless appalled to see your letters page headline a letter from an `anti-vaxer’, that was riddled with factual errors and propaganda. That kind of letter is as dangerous as it is inaccurate, and a publication such as yours should be asking questions of itself for giving a platform for somebody to peddle such nonsense.
I shall not even start on Mr Unsworth’s clear and total lack of understanding of how the human immune system works, but I cannot ignore his assertin, with some great confidence, but with no foundation, that vaccines are linked with heart problems.
It seems to me that he has based his evidence upon that most spurious of means, i.e., suggestively Googling phrases that bring up the answers you specifically want them to.
Whilst there may have been a few cardiac related deaths of late, the actual increased incidence has been grossly exaggerated and the numerical differences are not likely due to real life numbers, but more so that people who want to find connections are searching for cases that may have flown under the radar in an era when theorists were not searching for reasons to back up their belief system.
The more reputable medical journals will demonstrate that there is more of a link to heart inflammation from the virus itself than the vaccine. Any link from the vaccine to cardiac arrests is at best anecdotal and it’s quite clear that conspiracy theorists will project themselves down the route that leads to the answer they want to find.
An independent investigation by Reuters into those that many claimed were ‘proof’ of vaccine-caused cardiac issues found that over 95 per cent were either due to congenital issues, other illnesses, prior acquired heart defects or even bogus claims from people wishing to push their agenda. Only three out of 108 young cardiac deaths were possibly linked to a vaccine, leading this independent body to conclude that there was more of a cardiac risk from the virus itself than the jab.
I was particularly disgusted by the writer’s attempts to drag one of my sporting heroes, Sergio Aguero, into the equation as some form of proof of his warped beliefs.
Given that Mr Unsworth is undoubtedly one of those that insists that those of us that he classes as being part of the “herd” should “do our own research”, I could turn this around and suggest that he reads Sergio’s biography or perhaps even does a little suggestive Googling, which would bring up the fact that Sergio had suffered from cardiac arrhythmias as early as 2004 when he was a teenager at Independiente.
Indeed, Christian Eriksson’s collapse this summer was an incident that these people used to point fingers at the vaccine, only for it to be confirmed later that he hadn’t yet had the vaccine at the time of his collapse.
At the end of the day, it was disappointing that your publication should resort to spreading such misinformation. The vaccine has been proven by real life medical experts to be our way out of this awful two years.
If the Google search engine provides all the answers after one suggestive phrase, then why would some of the cleverest medical minds in the world waste seven years of their life training to merely get onto the bottom rung of their professional ladder?
David Concannon, Newton-le-Willows
NO RISK OF CARDIAC ARREST
Why did League Express feel the need to lead with a letter full of misinformation and scare mongering?
The British Heart Foundation states….”There is no evidence that people are at risk of cardiac arrest in the days or weeks following vaccination”.
If you want a debate on the merits or otherwise of vaccination then so be it, but to print such utter drivel is dangerous and irresponsible.
My personal view is that vaccination is the price you pay to take part in society and that applies to playing Rugby League too!
Brenda Noton, Harrogate
Mailbag Editor’s Note: It is not the task of any newspaper’s Mailbag editor to correct, contest or otherwise change any correspondent’s text. It is merely to sub-edit for spelling or other, purely grammatical errors, or to eliminate (by some minor rearrangement of the writer’s own words) any unforeseen, potentially unclear or double meanings to them.
BIZARRE ADVICE
I take issue with Graham Unsworth on the stance the RFL is taking re unvaccinated players.
Our scientists have done an amazing job in making vaccines that have gone through exhausting trials before being put on the market. The vaccines have very few serious side effects, although there is always a very small risk of a medicine or vaccine causing severe side effects, none has, to my knowledge, have brought on heart attacks.
Our population is now much more able to cope with these variants than at the beginning of the pandemic, which improvement is down purely to the vaccine.
Both my wife and I caught Omicron just after Christmas and although we felt unwell, we were not poorly and did not require hospital treatment. This is down entirely to the booster jabs.
The RFL is pointing out, quite rightly, that players should be vaccinated to protect themselves and their fellow players from this horrible disease and also, so as not disrupt matches due to required isolation.
We have had enough disruption from Covid during the last two seasons. This is a free country where jabs are not, of course, mandatory. All the Rugby League is doing is pointing out however, in my view, is the obvious, and telling the RFL to accept liability for an adverse reaction is bizarre.
Ian Haskey, Castleford
ATTENTION SEEKING
I refer to the letter in last week’s Mailbag about heart attacks and footballers.
A Google search brings up a mainstream media article, which quotes the UK’s leading sports cardiologist, Professor Sanjay Sharma, who has worked with several of the footballers recently affected.
According to Mail online (December 15, 2021): “Professor Sharma insists that the worrying spike in cardiac arrests, and soccer stars retiring with heart-related issues, is NOT to do with Covid Vaccine”. Perhaps your banner headline should have read: Anti-Vaccine Conspiracy Theorist Seeks Attention.
Trevor Delaney, Lytham St Annes
PROBLEM PEOPLE
Last week’s letter from Graham Unsworth asked, “Why is no one talking about a possible link between the vaccine and these terrible tragedies?”
Could I suggest that the answer is that there is no scientific evidence for such a link.
I always enjoy reading Mailbag and hearing people’s opinions on Rugby League matters. Some I agree with and some I don’t and that is how it should be.
However, Mr Unsworth’s letter has very little to do with Rugby League and everything to do with taking an anti-vax stance in the current pandemic.
My daughter-in-law is a Consultant in Respiratory Medicine in a large general hospital. She told me at Christmas that virtually every bed was occupied by someone who refused vaccinations. She said that the staff were at breaking point and when she visited us recently she spent most of the day on the phone trying to find enough doctors to give her wards safe medical cover.
Given this background, I was surprised and disappointed that you have given a prominent platform to the views of people who are making a major contribution to this problem.
Don Wright, Bradford
BOOKING MY TRIP
That the 2025 World Cup will be held in France is great news for Rugby League and I can’t wait to book a tour of that beautiful country in that year, when I hope the Covid pandemic will be a distant memory.
Congratulations to the French Prime Minister Jean Castex for fronting the press conference and to the World Rugby League organisation under its Australian Chairman Troy Grant for having the foresight to take the men’s, women’s, wheelchair and youth tournaments to France.
I fervently hope that this news will stimulate the growth of Rugby League in France and elsewhere in Europe.
David Robinson, Knaresborough
RAY OF LIGHT IN FRANCE
“Toulouse concerned about Covid rules” was the headline for an article in last week’s issue of League Express.
May I suggest that Toulouse should contact the French Sports Minister Roxana Mărăcineanu who has said that sportspeople coming to France to compete are set to be exempt from rules requiring full vaccination.
This was in an article in The Guardian dated 8th January, and must also imply that home-based players in France would, and should have the same exemption, if playing teams from other countries. And that must include any other sport, including Rugby League.
Not only should the RFL take note, but also the French Rugby League authorities. I see no reason why the season should not now go ahead as normal.
John Wheeler, Sandbach, Cheshire
COVID PUNISHMENT
Rather than the failure to fulfil a fixture in the new season resulting in the match being awarded to the opposition with a score of 48-0, would it not make more sense to award another ‘Home’ game to the aggrieved team as well, so that the team without Covid would get some revenue associated with the remaining fixture between the two teams and the Covid affected team would get no revenue from either game.
Surely this would focus the minds of team officials to ensure that they get players fully vaccinated and offer some recompense to the non-Covid side.
Angie Austin, Chorley
