ABC News
ABC NewsBY: BENJAMIN SIEGEL
(WASHINGTON) — President Trump on Tuesday again advocated for college football in the fall, falsely claiming that coronavirus “just attacks old people” and that young, healthy college athletes are “not going to have a problem.”
“People don’t realize it’s a tiny percentage of people that, that gets sick,” he said in an interview with ‘Outkick’ on Fox sports Radio. “It just attacks, old people, especially old people with bad heart, diabetes, or some kind of a physical problem.”
Several Division I colleges and athletic conferences have canceled fall sports and football amid speculation that the Big 10 and some of the country’s most prominent athletic conferences could cancel the fall football season over concerns about the coronavirus and a rare heart condition that could be associated with COVID-19.
Eduardo Rodriguez, a 27-year-old star pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, was recently diagnosed with myocarditis, heart inflammation that team doctors believe stemmed from his COVID-19 infection, and will not play for the rest of the Major League Baseball season.
While older Americans are considered more vulnerable to COVID-19 and the mortality rates for younger people remains low, hospitals have seen a growing number of younger patients admitted with severe symptoms throughout the summer as the virus has spread across the country.
Public health experts and medical officials have also warned about the potential for long-term health effects from COVID-19 given how little is known about the novel coronavirus. And, officials are concerned that young people who do become infected but don’t exhibit symptoms are spreading the virus to other, more vulnerable individuals.
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