There continues to be growing debate whether or not athletes should be among the first to be vaccinated against COVID-19 and this is unlikely to go away any time soon.
While there are a number of good reasons why athletes should get preferential treatment there are some also arguing why they shouldn't be on the priority list.
Several countries outside and within our region are already ensuring their athletes are looked after and these include national football teams preparing to contest the Qatar 2022 World Cup qualifiers later this month.
Former national icon Russell Latapy received the vaccination last week along with members of the Barbados team which will be heading to the Dominican Republic, like T&T, for their opening World Cup qualifier later this month. The vaccination has reduced their quarantine time to five days upon their return to Barbados.
Another local football icon Stern John, head coach of Anguilla, was also vaccinated along with other members of staff and playing personnel two weeks ago and will receive his second vaccination in April. John's Anguilla will be heading to Miami for a training camp later this month and then off to the Dominican Republic for their qualifier. Members of the Grenada national football team were also vaccinated last week.
Caribbean Football Union (CFU) and Barbados Football Association president Randy Harris was also vaccinated recently.
“I do quite a bit of travelling when things are normal and I want to be ahead of the game when things ease off and we’re in a much better place,” said Harris.
Recently FIFA president Gianni Infantino stated: "We will certainly not take any risk for the health of anyone when we play football."
Infantino was speaking at World Health Organisation (WHO) news conference in Geneva where he, like other officials in the sporting fraternity, did say that preference must be given to frontline workers and the elderly.
Late last year, Dr Anthony Fauci spoke about the importance of getting the COVID-19 vaccine to certain groups of people first, including healthcare workers and people who are high risk. An elite or professional athlete is, by definition, going to be in peak physical condition and have access to more medical resources than your average person — all of which makes them far removed from “high risk.”
With the Tokyo Olympics set to go ahead, some nations like Hungary, Serbia and Israel are moving ahead with inoculating their would-be Olympians to ensure they are free to train, qualify, travel and compete. The Hungarian Olympic Committee said 868 athletes had been selected to receive the Moderna vaccine to facilitate their preparations in the run-up to the Games.
International Olympic Committee (IOC) member Dick Pound also argued recently that athletes should be among the first vaccinated.
“To take 300 or 400 vaccines out of several million in order to have Canada represented at an international event of this stature, character and level — I don’t think there would be any kind of a public outcry about that,” Pound said.
"Clearly health workers come first and the really vulnerable would be a close second," Pound said. "Then, you start triaging how you would use remaining dosages... For the very, very small numbers involved and the very symbolic meaning of a successful Games in this context, my guess – and it's only a guess – would be that most countries would be very much in favour of it."
Indian Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju has claimed the country's athletes heading to the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo will "all be vaccinated" against COVID-19. According to The Indian Express, Rijiju said the vaccination would be given first to "medical and security people", but all athletes would be inoculated in time for Tokyo 2020.
A playbook released by the IOC and the International Paralympic Committee for International Federation and technical officials has reiterated vaccines will not be mandatory for participants to attend Tokyo 2020, with measures such as frequent testing, masks and social distancing set to be in place instead.
In Southeast Asia, Indonesia and Thailand are offering COVID-19 vaccines for athletes and coaches. Indonesia has vaccinated more than 800 people, including staff, coaches, athletes and medical staff who are attending the upcoming SEA (Southeast Asian) Games.
The United Arab Emirates' (UAE) The National News reported that the UAE government has prepared 6 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines, enough for about 60 per cent of the UAE's population. The UAE football team is in the priority group for vaccination, as they have international matches in June. In February, the national team and Under-22 football teams of Indonesia were vaccinated in Jakarta.
A total of 135 national football teams are due to play World Cup qualifiers later this month. Meantime, it has been reported Qatar is now planning for a “complete normal” World Cup in 2022 after the rapid progress in producing vaccines for the coronavirus, the tournament CEO told The Associated Press.
“The introduction of the vaccine and the rollout of the vaccine, it’s definitely good news for everybody,” 2022 World Cup chief executive Nasser Al-Khater said in an interview with the AP. “Everybody’s looking forward to going back to some sort of normalcy in life and especially in sports as well. We’re very hopeful and very looking forward that, by 2022, hopefully, things will really be back to complete normal and looking forward to hosting the fans and having a normal and successful World Cup."
Over the next few weeks, the T&T men's senior team will have World Cup qualifiers in the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and the Bahamas while the men's beach soccer team will be off to Costa Rica for CONCACAF qualifiers in May and the men's futsal team will jet off to Guatemala for the CONCACAF Futsal qualifiers.
Let's not forget our Olympians who will be representing the red, white and black at the Games in July while several other local athletes remain hopeful of competing in other sporting activities at an international level.
Shaun Fuentes is the head of TTFA Media. He is a former FIFA Media Officer at the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa and 2013 FIFA U-20 World Cup in Turkey The views expressed are solely his and not a representation of any organisation. shaunfuentes@yahoo.com