Over a year ago, sports were shut down due to the COVID-19 despite knowing so little about the virus and its potential long-term effects. Some seasons of different American sports like football and basketball were either canceled or postponed to a later date. The NBA, for instance, was postponed in March 2020 before the players association and the league decided to finish the 2019-2020 season in July at Walt Disney World in Orlando.
But some players weren’t so eager to play right away because they would put their bodies at risk.
That’s what happened to Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum in the following season. Tatum tested positive for the virus on Jan. 9. Tatum has spoken openly about the COVID-19 effects and his recovery. In February he said he fatigues quicker than normal. Tatum told the media on Tuesday that he still hasn’t “gotten over” his recent bout with the coronavirus. He said he’s started using an inhaler before games to help open his lungs, something he never had to do pre-COVID.
“It’s a process,” the 23-year-old said of his recovery. “It takes a long time. I take an inhaler before a game since I tested positive. It’s kind of helped with that and opened up my lungs. I never took an inhaler before.”
Tatum’s lungs are damaged due to COVID-19 and since the virus is a new strain that has the world’s doctors and epidemiologists perplexed, we still don’t know how long it will take for Tatum’s lungs will be fully healed if ever.
Portland Trailblazers forward, Nasir Little, tested positive for the virus in December. He told The Athletic that he lost 20 pounds in three weeks, couldn’t stomach any food or drink, and had terrible headaches. He also said that he lost his sense of taste and smell.
“I’m not trying to sound morbid or anything, but it was to the point where it was like, you just don’t want to feel anything,” Little said. “It was really that bad. You just wished it would stop. It was consistent, 24/7 … just miserable pain. My back was hurting so bad, my headaches were terrible, I couldn’t eat anything…”
Black people have been hospitalized and have died at disproportionate rates from COVID-19 than white people since the pandemic began. It has also taking a great toll on the health of young black men.
Washington Post health care reporter Akilah Johnson investigated the impact of the pandemic on an entire generation of young Black men in America in a lengthy article for ProPublica last December.
Johnson said Black men’s increased COVID exposure can be due to “working outside the home during the pandemic, riding public transportation, living in multi-generational homes, and lacking access to health care”. Johnson says there’s a higher comorbidity rate with other diseases, such as diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular and lung issues once someone is infected and hospitalized.
She attributes that stress makes black men more vulnerable in contracting COVID. “It’s a very particular type of stress that stems from being Black and being Black men in America,” she said. We’re all under stress in the pandemic. But this is a very particular type of stress that’s related to racism.”
She also attributes that the coronavirus is shortening life expectancy, according to researchers she spoke with. “Black men already have the shortest life expectancy of any American demographic, and COVID is taking years from people,” she said. According the Department of Health and Human Services, Black men live shorter lives than all other Americans — 71.5 years versus 76.1 years for white men.
Jayson Tatum and Nasir Little are young and perfectly healthy black males. Both are examples of a young athlete that has suffered longer-term effects from the virus. They were negatively affected by the virus even after having the symptoms. Some of black men their age or even older are not so lucky.
Even with the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccines, black people specifically black men are still reluctant into becoming vaccinated.
According to Kaiser Family Foundation’s (KFF’s) Feb. 19 poll, 45 percent of black men say they want to “wait and see” how the vaccine is working for others before getting vaccinated themselves compared to 37 percent that say they want to “get it as soon they can”. Large shares of black men say they do not have enough information about the vaccine’s side effects and are worried they might experience serious side effects themselves.
