Terence Crawford’s Thoughts On Coronavirus Making the Rounds

Quotes by Terence Crawford are making the rounds now, after the Nebraska boxer spoke to Chris Mannix on his podcast, which is on the Sports Illustrated platform.

Crawford, the WBO welterweight champion, told Mannix that he wasn’t really believing the news, that so many peple are sick and dying, from coronavirus.

Mannix pushed back, said that things are bad in NY, and Crawford comes to NY a lot. Bud asked why people are still working, if things are so unsafe. Even cops, he said, if it’s so bad, why don’t they just want to be with their family.

“I’m not tripping or worried about this stuff like everyone else,” he told Mannix. Maybe powers that be are trying to use fear to get control of the masses, he theorized.

He did vocalize one element that should be rebutted, fully, in case anyone is listening to him instead of medical experts. Crawford said he heard that the virus really only affects old people, or people that have asthma, or the obese. Not so; while the elderly and folks with more underlying conditions are hit harder, young people, healthy people, they are getting struck by the vicious virus. Yes, this virus surely does hit the elderly harder, that is true. Here is a good article which touches on the breadth of the damage done.

The Crawford-Mannix taped four or more days ago, so of course, the spread of the virus can make leaps and bounds in different sectors at different rates. Crawford said he wasn’t having his family on lockdown, but maybe that’s changed since the taping. In NY, more people know someone who died, elsewhere that isn’t case.

Some excerpts from the chat with the 36-0 boxer:

“I don’t feel like these people that they say are dying and sick from it is actually true. I think they’re using fear to try to control us right now, for something else.

“The media runs the world. You put anything on then everybody’s gonna run with it and you’ll have people scared.

Only ten or so states and territories have fewer deaths from coronavirus than Nebraska, as of Sunday, so it makes sense, perhaps, that it doesn’t resonate for people in places where the virus hasn’t made severe impact.

You likely have heard a conspiracy theory or three making the rounds, as people try to make sense of a mind-blowing development. It is beyond anything we’ve experienced, most of us, and so it can be harder to process. And with political leaders and the press neck and neck for what sector is less trusted, and with organized religions taking a hit because of decades of scandals, people are not knowing who or what to believe. That leads to some theories not born from irrefutable fact being spread on social media, and getting entrenched. Here is a story which delves into that byproduct of the virus’ assault.

2020 has to be on everyone’s list of shittiest year ever, and we aren’t even to May. So, I’m not taking hard aim at Terence. I do take hard aim at leaders here who have not done their utmost to present needless deaths, and anywhere where this scourge could have been minimized, but wasn’t, because of ego, pride, incompetence or malfeasance.

In NY, the last half of the week, more attention was given to the inequality of the virus, and how it is hitting less wealthy neighborhoods with a meaner lash. And people in those places don’t get heard as much by mainstream media, that’s another reason why outside of “hot spot” zones, some citizens aren’t embracing the “conventional wisdom” take on the respiratory marauder.

And, finally,  here is a video which will perhaps help convince anyone thinking talk of the virus is overblown.

I will tell one and all this…The entire time I was typing this story, in Park Slope, Brooklyn, New York, I heard ambulance sirens, from outside. Chances are really good that every single siren represents a very real story of a person in that vehicle who is sick, or dying.

Follow Michael Woods on Twitter for boxing news and opinion, and commentary on matters apart from pugilism.