The players in the National Basketball Association are among the strongest and in best physical condition people on the planet. As we have previously noted, the Philadelphia 76ers all-star center, Joel Embiid, who was fully vaccinated, went out of action in early November due to a positive test for COVID-19, and he later said that he was so ill that he wondered if he was going to survive. Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, who was fully vaccinated, missed a week due to a positive test.

Nowe there’s this:

After last month’s outbreak, Sixers now watch as NBA deals with latest COVID-19 wave

As of Thursday night, nearly 70 players league-wide had been put in health and safety protocols this season, including 52 in December.

by Gina Mizell | Friday, December 17, 2021

NEW YORK — The number of Twitter notifications peppering Joel Embiid’s cellphone recently have been comparable to those of draft night, the star big man said.

Except the reason for the constant news-breaking is grim, not celebratory.

The Sixers were the first NBA team to experience a major COVID-19 outbreak this season, when four players including Embiid were in health and safety protocols from Nov. 1 until Thanksgiving. Now, those players are watching as the virus’ wave takes hold across the league.

“At this point, it’s kind of turned into a bit of a joke,” third-year wing Matisse Thybulle added. “You just see Woj [ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski] and almost every other tweet, it’s another player in [protocols]. Yeah, it’s kind of frightening.”

As of Thursday night, nearly 70 players league-wide had been put in health and safety protocols this season, including 52 in December. That growing number has overshadowed this week’s games, including Philly’s 114-105 loss in Brooklyn to a Nets team without seven players, including superstar James Harden.

Further down came the money line:

For a league that is 97% vaccinated, the vast majority of the positive tests are breakthrough cases.

In the National Football League, 96% of the players are vaccinated, but the Philadelphia Eagles are having their Sunday game postponed until Tuesday, because their scheduled opponent, the Washington Redskins Football Team, has had an outbreak of positive tests.

It’s become very clear: the vaccines simply do not prevent a person from contracting the virus. Denmark and Norway have just reported positive cases for the Xi Omicron variant among the fully vaccinated are almost the same as the percentage of the population who are fully vaccinated.

Getting vaccinated is wise, in that it seems to lessen the symptoms in those who do contract the virus, but as far as keeping people from contracting it in the first place? The evidence for that doesn’t seem very strong.

And that blows the rationale for vaccine mandates out of the water. If the vaccines don’t prevent you from contracting the virus, or prevent you from spreading it to others, and the only seemingly real effect is to lessen symptoms for the individual, then it’s the individual’s choice as to whether he wants to risk it. It’s on him, and nobody else.