Kareem Abdul Jabbar isn’t particularly fond of LeBron James’ vaccine stance in the face of a raging pandemic.
It has just been two months since the basketball maestro called out the Lakers stalwart for his skepticism in promoting the Covid-19 vaccine. Fast forward the clock to the present day and the legend once again took to Substack to express his disapproval about James’ vaccine stance.
The latest nod of disapproval was for James’ posting of a meme that discourages vaccine enthusiasts.
A glimpse at the meme that infuriated Kareem Abdul Jabbar
The meme had three spidermen labelled “Covid”, “Cold” and “flu”, which implied the fact that all three illnesses are basically the same which is wrong at its very root. He also captioned it, “Help me out, folks”.
The post is still visible for everyone to see on the official Instagram account of James LeBron. He has a follower base of 106 million users.
Despite support from a couple of illustrious monikers on the post that included the likes of Trae Young and Jamie Foxx, Kareem Abdul Jabbar clearly mentioned that this was a blotch on his impressive legacy.
In his long essay about the Lakers star, Kareem Abdul Jabbar quoted, “With 106 million Instagram followers, making such a post is automatically politically impactful because he questions the validity of the efforts to get the country vaccinated. As is evident by some of the comments that cheer LeBron’s post, he’s given support to those not getting vaccinated, which makes the situation for all of worse by postponing our health and economic recovery.
“The CDC reports that those who are unvaccinated are 9 times more likely to be admitted to the hospital and 14 times more likely to die from COVID than those vaccinated. The number rises to 20 times more likely when compared to someone who’s gotten a booster shot. By posting the uninformed meme, LeBron has encouraged vaccine hesitancy which puts lives and livelihoods at risk.”
He also cited the glaring numbers that underlined the falsehoods of James’ post. He continued, “To directly address LeBron’s confusion, no one thinks colds and the flu aren’t serious. In the 2019-2020 flu season, 400,000 people were hospitalized and 22,000 people died. In 2020, 385,428 people died of COVID-19, while so far in 2021, 423,558 have died in the U.S., for a total of 808,986 deaths. Experts agree that COVID-19 is at least 10 times more lethal than the flu. As for the common cold, death is extremely rare.”
Kareem Abdul Jabbar has always been vocal about his love for James when he used his platform against police brutality imposed upon the black people but his latest vaccine stance isn’t something that the legend has become a fan of.
