Minnesota Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins wants to play football.
Cousins doesn’t think masks do a whole lot to stem the spread of COVID-19 — and more than that, he’s a 32-year-old, top-class athlete, so he’s not too worried about catching the virus, which causes only mild symptoms in most healthy people.
“If I die, I die,” Cousins said on Spotify’s “10 Questions” podcast hosted by NFL Network’s Kyle Brandt.
During the interview, Cousins disagreed with the new tack taken by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which now says masks can prevent the spread of the virus (dozens of top doctors and scientists — say that claim has not been proven).
Brandt asked Cousins: “If 1 is the person who says, ‘Masks are stupid, you’re all a bunch of lemmings,’ and 10 is, ‘I’m not leaving my master bathroom for the next 10 years,’ where do you land?”
Cousins laughed and said, “I’m not gonna’ call anybody stupid, for the trouble it would get me in. But I’m about a .000001.”
“Really, how come?” Brandt asked, according to the New York Post.
“I want to respect what other people’s concerns are. For me personally, just talking no one else can get the virus, what is your concern if you could get it, I would say I’m gonna’ go about my daily life. If I get it, I’m gonna’ ride it out. I’m gonna’ let nature do its course. Survival-of-the-fittest kind of approach. And just say, if it knocks me out, it knocks me out. I’m going to be OK. You know, even if I die. If I die, I die. I kind of have peace about that.
“So that’s really where I fall on it, so my opinion on wearing a mask is really about being respectful to other people. It really has nothing to do with my own personal thoughts,” said the QB, set to make $35 million this season.
And Cousins has a point: The NFL recently announced that four players among 8,739 have currently tested positive for COVID-19.
Here is video of his interview.
