A director of an Australian rules football team resigned after one of the team’s players developed a debilitating heart condition from the COVID-19 vaccine that he was forced to take in order to continue to play.
According to Melbourne newspaper The Age, Nick Takos, a member of the board of directors of the Adelaide Crows, said in a statement Wednesday that he was quitting because “the AFL’s [Australian Football League] COVID mandate, and the club’s deeply concerning response to it, has left me with no choice but to step down.” (Adelaide is the capital of the state of South Australia.)
The AFL has mandated that all football players and staff in the league get one of the COVID-19 vaccines. The Crows went the league one better by also requiring club officials such as Takos to be jabbed, reported 7News.
Takos failed to meet the November 19 deadline to be vaccinated, instead seeking a medical exemption, which the Crows denied.
Takos’ resignation followed news that one Crows player was diagnosed with pericarditis — inflammation of the outer tissue of the heart — after being vaccinated. Adelaide radio talk-show host Stephen Rowe reported that while the player is expected to “make a full recovery,” his cardiologist has told him not to exercise for the next three months and has prescribed medication for him.
This player is hardly alone among athletes in his reaction to a COVID-19 vaccine. As of December 5, nearly 300 athletes worldwide had experienced serious health conditions after getting one of the jabs; of those, 167 have died. And those are just the ones who made the news.
Takos said he had “been increasingly concerned following news” of the Crows player’s vaccine injury and therefore “called a special board meeting to urgently discuss the player’s condition, the health and safety of all of our players and other associated risks.”
Takos stated that he told the board “that while I am not anti-vaccination generally, corporations should not tell their staff and footy fans what medical treatment is good for them through a mandatory vaccination policy.”
Nevertheless, he recalled, “It was clear the board was immovable on this issue and key, reasonable questions are yet to be answered.” Among them: “what steps the club has taken to review its vaccination policy in light of the incident and any similar events” and “whether the known risks of COVID-19 vaccines were considered when the vaccination policy was adopted and, given the player’s injury, proposing that the mandatory policy be reviewed as soon as possible.”
“I cannot support a coercive and forceful policy that does not consider the proportionate risk to players and staff,” he declared.
Unfortunately, when it comes to believers in the official COVID-19 line, there is no such thing as keeping things in proportion. To them, preventing the spread of this virus is the one and only thing that matters, and the sole way to do that is to follow the ever-changing advice of public-health authorities. Accordingly, even though, according to The Age, “more than 87 per cent of eligible Australians are double vaccinated,” the rest of the population must be forced to get their shots, too, lest the vaccinated — who the paper claims are “guard[ed] against infection” — come in contact with them.
Thus, Crows chairman John Olsen’s response to Takos’ departure was to remind people of the club’s “duty” to impose “appropriate health and safety requirements to protect our people and the wider community” — never mind whether those requirements actually protect anyone.
Takos, on the other hand, argued that getting a COVID-19 vaccine was “ultimately a medical decision that we each have to make for ourselves and in some cases with advice from our doctors.”
“The AFL has chosen to enforce its edict. The only option available was to fall into line at the expense of my personal (private) medical circumstances, including my unique health conditions which have been deemed significant by my specialists, and supported by my cardiologist in a request to the club for a medical exemption (which has been denied),” said Takos.
“I cannot agree to the imposition of that corporate edict on my health, values and convictions, and those of other staff, players and members, despite the personal cost.”
