Liam Jones’ vax call shouldn’t have cost his AFL career

What’s happened to Carlton’s Liam Jones shows that enforcing vaccine mandates is more about punishment than community protection.

Liam Jones. (Photo by Matt King/AFL Photos )

Liam Jones’ decision not to receive a Covid-19 vaccine should not cost him a million dollars nor see him forced into premature retirement from the game he loves. It’s a personal choice that an individual should be able to make without coercion.

The Carlton star’s decision will be seen as foolhardy by many but it’s also plucky, and exceedingly rare, for a professional athlete to take a stand at great personal cost. Most athletes who indulge in political or social justice grandstanding end up receiving accolades from like-minded media while corporate sponsors line their pockets, unless of course they say something outside of the Leftist playbook like Israel Folau paraphrasing bible verses on his Instagram account. But I digress.

For Jones to take such a stand he either considers the current selection of Covid-19 vaccines unsafe (a boneheaded call if you ask me) or he is taking a position against the mandatory nature of vaccine passports that divide the population into the “clean” and “unclean”.

Jones took a stand at great personal cost. Picture: Getty

Aside from aged or health care, there is very little sense in enforcing vaccine mandates in workplaces. We should not effectively give workers two choices; get jabbed or get thrown on the scrap heap. We have heard extensively from a number of infectious disease experts – including Dr Nick Coatsworth, Stanford University medical professor Jay Bhattacharya, epidemiologist and professor of medicine at Harvard University Dr Martin Kulldorff and many others – on why the long-term use of vaccine mandates is unnecessary and sometimes counter-productive.

Covid-19 vaccines give fantastic protection in reducing your likelihood of becoming infected and more importantly reducing the severity of any infection but the truth is the double vaxxed can still catch and transmit the virus. Indeed some recent research indicates that the vaccinated and unvaccinated once infected may have similar viral loads.

Last month research from the University of California, Davis, Genome Center, UC San Francisco and the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub showed “no significant difference in viral load between vaccinated and unvaccinated people who tested positive for the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2.” As someone who is fully vaccinated I couldn’t care less whether the person next to me on the plane, in the office or at the footy is jabbed or not. That is their business; all I need to know is that I am protected, as are my at-risk loved ones.

It’s quite clear that enforcing vaccine mandates has become about punishment not community protection. Healthy young men playing AFL are at close to zero risk of dying from Covid-19. In any case almost all players are vaccinated and even without mandates a high percentage would be double jabbed. That’s why the NRL has taken a more pragmatic approach and refrained from adopting illiberal mandates.

If a player, for whatever reason, does not provide proof of vaccination it does not necessarily have to end their career. The league has accepted that the risk posed by the few unvaccinated is “low to nothing” and will not give ultimatums to players who do not want to be immunised.

Australian Rugby League Commission Chairman Peter V’landys has taken a pragmatic approach. Picture: Getty

Peter V’landys, chairman of the Australian Rugby League Commission, is keen to accommodate all players regardless of their vaccination status.

“As a rugby league family, we look after everyone. You can’t force people to do something they don’t want to do,” he said. “I think people are really making a mountain out of a molehill. There are 15 players and that should reduce over time. We believe we can – like the government in NSW, allow for 95 per cent vaccination and the 5 per cent who don’t – you can work with it. The risk is low to nothing.”

How refreshing to have a sporting administrator display some perspective and rationality. As we reported last month the Australian Open has been rocked with reports that around two in five tennis players are not vaccinated, including world No. 1 Novak Djokovic.

This week Australia’s Nick Kyrgios backed the Serbian superstar’s decision and even suggested the Australian Open should be cancelled.

“I don’t think the Aus Open should go ahead, just for the people in Melbourne – you’ve got to send a message,” Kyrgios said.

“Kyrie (Irving), Novak ... These guys have given so much, sacrificed so much. They are global athletes who millions of people look up to. I just think it is so morally wrong to force someone to be vaccinated. I’m double vaccinated, but I just don’t think it’s right to force anyone and say ‘you can’t come and play here because you’re not vaccinated.’ There are other solutions ...”

The masses in this country are finally waking up to the Covid reality that the virus will be with us long term and there’ll be many new variants. Developing an underclass of unvaccinated is no way to deal with an endemic virus nor are indiscriminate lockdowns and restrictions. We must learn to live with Covid or live in fear in a divided society.

IN SHORT

Matthew Guy was at the opening of Melbourne’s hottest new nightspot, Bar Bambi, on Thursday, rubbing shoulders with A-listers but he couldn’t make it to a 50,000-strong rally against the Andrews government’s radical pandemic bill on Saturday. No wonder people call Liberal Democrat David Limbrick Victoria’s unofficial opposition leader.