Kyrie Irving: If I can work unvaccinated, others should be able to, too
On today’s installment of ‘things Kyrie Irving posts on Twitter,’ the Nets star guard appears to have responded to a video of Mayor Eric Adams getting his COVID-19 booster shot on live TV.
The Mayor’s appearance was part of a campaign promoting COVID-19 booster shots in New York City, as he ends the private employer vaccine mandate but keeps the mandate active for city workers.
Irving, who is the most notable among the NBA’s unvaccinated players and the only known unvaccinated NBA player in New York City, tweeted in defense of the unvaccinated – and thus unemployed – workforce suffering because of their decision against the COVID-19 vaccine.
“If I can work and be unvaccinated, then all of my brothers and sisters who are also unvaccinated should be able to do the same, without being discriminated against, vilified, or fired,” he wrote. “This enforced Vaccine/Pandemic is one the biggest violations of HUMAN RIGHTS in history.”
Irving, of course, took the biggest stand in basketball last season when he decided against getting vaccinated in a city with a vaccine mandate for pro athletes. The mandate – which was lifted for pro athletes in March – rendered him ineligible to play in home games at Barclays Center.
The Nets also kept Irving from playing in road games or practicing at home until a league-wide COVID-19 outbreak sent three-quarters of the roster into the league’s health and safety protocols a third of the way into the season.
Irving’s tweet came two days after president Joe Biden declared the COVID-19 pandemic is over. “The pandemic is over,” Biden said on Sunday. “We still have a problem with Covid. We’re still doing a lot of work on it. It’s – but the pandemic is over.”
“The most scary part of the pandemic may be in our rear view mirror,” the mayor said on Tuesday.
Fifteen minutes after his first tweet, Irving followed up: “Use me God,” he wrote. “No fear.”
Irving caught heat over the weekend for re-sharing a 2002 clip of Alex Jones promoting the New World Order on his Instagram story. In the clip titled “Alex Jones Tried to Warn Us,” Jones, who was discredited in a court of law and admitted he intentionally lied about the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, says the government is trying to control the people by unleashing “diseases and viruses and plagues upon us.”
“Yes, there have been corrupt empires. Yes, they manipulate. Yes, there have been secret societies. Yes, there have been oligarchies throughout history,” Jones says in the clip. “And yes, today in 2002, there is a tyrannical organization calling itself the New World Order pushing for worldwide government, a cashless society, total and complete tyranny. By centralizing and socializing health care, the state becomes god basically with your health, and then by releasing diseases and viruses and plagues upon us, we then basically get shoved into their system where human beings are absolutely worthless.”
