5. Lebron Accused of Encouraging Vaccine Hesitancy During C0V1D Pandemic
During the C0v1_d pandemic, Lebron posted a funny meme on his Instagram account that raised questions concerning the disease.
The offending meme: a three-way Spider-Man pointing meme with the figures labeled “c0v1d,” “cold” and “flu,” the obvious implication being that three illnesses are basically the same..which is empirically false. James captioned the image “Help me out folks.”
Abdul-Jabbar said in his lengthy piece that James undermined the seriousness of C0V1D-19, harming efforts to improve vaccination rates, and regretted how such a statement could worsen the disease’s disproportionately high mortality rate among African Americans.
“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 C0V1D than those vaccinated. The number rises to 20 time 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.”