whole Whitworth family tests positive

Rams T Whitworth, Family Test Positive for Novel Coronavirus

Howard Balzer

https://www.si.com/nfl/cardinals/news/andrew-whitworth-family-test-positive

As the NFL and NFLPA continue to work toward making work environments safe for training camp, just how dangerous the novel coronavirus can be was experienced in a huge way by Los Angeles Rams tackle Andrew Whitworth.

During a conference call Friday with NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith and union president JC Tretter, the starting center for the Cleveland Browns, Whitworth joined the call to talk about the recent harrowing experience of his family.

Whitworth, the Rams’ player rep, opened by saying, “Our leadership, JC and those guys, have done a tremendous job and continue to be a solid voice for us. You’re going to have to make good decisions and have to be careful outside the building. We’re talking about things as simple as going to lunch with someone because all it takes is one exposure.”

He then explained: “My story is an example of that. We had a family member that simply just went to lunch with a friend and as innocent as it can be a couple days later we were traveling all together and she started to not feel well, and ended up deciding to get a test and the next thing we know, she had it. A couple days later my wife and I had it, a couple days later our kids had it so we were about 7-for-7 at that point. Then unfortunately we had just visited my wife’s family and we were traveling with them as well and her mom and dad both got it.

“Obviously, people of an older age it seems to be much tougher; it definitely was on them and unfortunately her dad got to a state where he had to be hospitalized. Luckily for us it’s such a blessing we got him home about four or five days ago. He’s home with us now. We’re very blessed to have him and for him to be OK. But its definitely a scary thing and you realize how contagious this really is. It doesn’t take much and it can spread like wildfire. For us, it’s affected us personally, scary but for our family, our kids we ended up OK everything seemed to go pretty normal pretty mild case, but for her parents it wasn’t that way.”

That drives home what the players are facing as they advocate for a return to play that is as safe as possible considering that is many cases not only players, but their families will be traveling to their team’s city, in which there are currently serious hot spots.