Washington head coach Ron Rivera said he is “beyond frustrated” with his team’s low vaccination rate as training camp begins, citing his own health history as one of his concerns.
“I’m truly frustrated, I’m beyond frustrated,” said Rivera, who was diagnosed with cancer in August, but is now cancer-free. “… I’m immune-deficient, OK? So with this new variant, who knows?
“So, when I’m in a group and the group’s not vaccinated or there’s a mixture, I put the mask on, and I do that for health reasons because nobody really knows. I have to do that. And I just wish and I hope that our guys can understand that.”
Rivera added the team is over 50 percent vaccinated and “hopefully trending in the right direction.”
“We’re not where we want to be,” he said. “A lot of guys have a lot of questions, unfortunately. They haven’t gotten the answers that they should have by now. We need to do a job of trying to make sure we can inform them and help them make an educated decision.
“Each individual has to make the decision for themselves, but hopefully they can understand just how impactful not getting the vaccine is.”
Washington’s rate was reported to be at 60 percent as of Monday, one of the lowest rates across the league.
As of Friday, nine teams were more than 90 percent vaccinated, and five were below 70 percent.
