Nebraska football: Huskers AD says team is at 90 percent COVID-19 vaccination rate

The Nebraska football team apparently has a considerably higher COVID-19 vaccination rate than that of the general population of the state.

The Huskers are apparently doing a pretty good job of getting their COVID-19 vaccines, according to Nebraska Athletic Director Trev Alberts. Wednesday evening, Alberts told media members that the Nebraska football team has apparently reached a 90% COVID-19 vaccination rate.

If that’s true, kudos to Scott Frost and the Huskers for getting that done. That sort of vaccination rate is impressive when looking at how the rest of the state is vaccinated.

So far, the vaccination rate for the state of Nebraska is currently much lower than that.

While the Huskers apparently have a 90% vaccination rate, just 52% of the Cornhusker State’s citizens are fully vaccinated as of Tuesday, August 24, according to the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services. 

But, for whatever reason, the Huskers apparently don’t have plans to institute a vaccine mandate at any point in the foreseeable future. According to Alberts, that’s just not in the cards.

Nebraska football: Huskers reach 90% vaccination rate, according to Nebraska athletic director Trev Alberts

It seems possible that Nebraska’s impressive COVID-19 vaccination rate is largely connected to the fact that the Big Ten has instituted a new COVID-19 forfeit policy. That new policy would hand a loss to teams that are unable to participate due to COVID-19.

From the Big Ten’s policy:

"“If a team is unable to participate in a scheduled Conference competition due to COVID-19 and as a result the competition is unable to occur on the calendar day on which it is scheduled, the competition shall be considered a forfeit by the team unable to participate and shall not be rescheduled.”"

You can read the full conference forfeiture policy by clicking here.

That sort of policy definitely creates a strong incentive for teams to get vaccinated. Now, there are plenty of other good reasons to get a COVID-19 vaccine as well. Like having a much better chance of avoiding COVID-19, for one.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a pretty long list of the benefits of a COVID-19 vaccine available online.

For more information on where to get a COVID-19 vaccine in Nebraska, the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services has resources here. The CDC also has resources on how to find COVID-19 vaccines here.