On February 15th, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) televised and posted an interview of top-ranked men’s tennis professional, Novak Djokovic. The interview focused on Djokovic’s decision to remain unvaccinated from COVID-19. He was denied entrance into last month’s Australian Open tournament because of his vaccine status and has delayed publicly giving his reason for declining the vaccination because “I had the right to keep that private and discreet.”
He consented to the BBC interview by Amol Rajan because Djokovic has witnessed “a lot of wrong conclusions and assumptions out there and I think it’s important to speak up about that and justify certain things.”
Despite being called an anti-vaxxer by some news outlets (Mirror, Time, The New York Times), in the interview, Djokovic stated, “I was never against vaccination. I understand that globally everyone is trying to put a big effort into handling this virus and seeing, hopefully, an end to this virus, and vaccination is probably the biggest effort that was made—half of the planet was fully vaccinated—and I fully respect that, but I’ve always represented and always supported the freedom to chose what you put into your body.”
Djokovic does not hesitate to take responsibility and accept the consequences for his view on the vaccine. He stated, “I understand that not being vaccinated today, I’m unable to travel to most of the tournaments—that is the price I’m willing to pay.”
When asked, “Are you prepared to forgo the chance to be the greatest player to pick up a racquet (statistically) because you feel so strongly about this jab?” Djokovic responded, “Yes, I do.”
He acknowledges that his stance on the vaccination may cause him to forfeit admission to the next two major tennis tournaments, Rolland-Garros in Paris and The Championships Wimbledon in London.
Editors Note:
“Novak Djokovic is the controlling shareholder in a Danish biotech firm aiming to develop a treatment for Covid-19 that does not involve vaccination, it has emerged. Ivan Loncarevic, the company’s chief executive, confirmed the investment to Reuters. He subsequently told the Financial Times that he had not spoken to Djokovic, who has won more than $150m in prize money, since November and that the tennis star was “not anti-vax”.
QuantBioRes has about 11 researchers working in Denmark, Australia and Slovenia, according to Loncarevic, who stressed the company was working on a treatment, not a vaccine. The company’s website says it started developing a “deactivation mechanism” for Covid-19 in July 2020.
The company is developing a peptide, which inhibits the coronavirus from infecting the human cell, and it expects to launch clinical trials in Britain this summer, Loncarevic said.
A spokesperson for Djokovic did not immediately respond to a request for comment.”
By Bascott O’Connor at Right Wire Report
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