Blazers' Jusuf Nurkić tried to buy unused US COVID-19 vaccines for his country, Bosnia and Herzegovina: "I tried to buy it for the whole country. All these countries are suffering & you have the United States, obviously the No. 1 in the world, has the vaccines & people don't want to get vaccinated." THERE IS STILL so much that matters. For Portland Trail Blazers center Jusuf Nurkic, who says he lost several family members to the virus, the task ahead is vital. His home country, Bosnia and Herzegovina, has been ravaged by COVID-19, with over 200,000 confirmed cases and 9,600 deaths reported to the World Health Organization, but it still has very limited access to the vaccine. "They just have donations, but not enough to vaccinate the people," Nurkic says. "I tried to buy it for the whole country. I figured out the money, the plan and everything. But we still can't do it. "Even if we find vaccines, I guess United States laws say that until the American people are vaccinated, you can't sell it. So, I don't know what else to do. I really tried." What's even harder, Nurkic says, is knowing how much vaccine supply is going unused in the United States, which he would gladly purchase for his country. "All these countries are suffering and you have the United States, obviously the No. 1 in the world, has the vaccines and people don't want to get vaccinated," he says. "I just feel like humanity has kind of failed, because all the countries around should get at least some of those vaccines, right?" Last July, just as the NBA's bubble was beginning in Florida, Nurkic learned that his grandmother in Bosnia and Herzegovina had contracted COVID-10 -- and treatment options were limited. "After 17 days, she survived the COVID," Nurkic says. "Then on Day 19, she had a heart attack. It was unbelievable." Nurkic got the news as he was on a bus to a game. "At that point, I wished I could just take a plane to go to the funeral," he says. "Probably, if I could do it again, I would do that. It's difficult when you're really far away."
Sad that Nurk has to take this on himself....even sadder that we have so many who refuse to get vaccinated while people outside this country are without...especially their first responders..Nurk is a good man...again, he walks the walk
This really enrages me; there are many countries in Eastern Europe and I'm sure Africa and maybe India that don't have enough vaccines. I would like to see USA figure out how to get vaccines to them. It's a shame that Nurkic was stonewalled.
I love Nurk, man. Hope he figures out a solution. When i got my JNJ shot in April at a local pharmacy, they had 3 doses leftover. I tried like hell to get people to drive over in the next few hrs to get a shot so it wouldn't go to waste. Had one person show up-- was quite disappointing. I can only imagine how much wastage there is on the national scale.
we have a beautiful contry and a beautiful people, but man, this country is fucked up on so many levels as much as i appreciate nurk for all his charity work, this is just unbelieavable, that he takes this on himself
The rest of America doesn't want the vaccines. Fuck them. Give them to other countries who need them.
This is very sad. To me, not getting the vaccine is a very selfish decision. "All about me" era. I wasn't allowed back in school, early'80's until i got up to date. Then i went into the military, and you don't get a say in what they're shooting you up, or poking you, with. But some in our country want to play hardball with other people's lives. I know there are risk, but there are risk in anything you take, or when you drive to work. I'm a severe allergy driven asthmatic. Potential was there for a reaction. But it was worth it , doing my part to keep other's safe. STOP the conspiracy madness. Get Vaccinated, because we're lucky. Others who wish they could, aren't. .
Our inability to use up the domestic supply affects more than just not being able to share the surplus with other countries. Leadership is saying we don't need a 3rd shot (2nd booster) despite Pfizer's claims to the contrary, because we should get everyone fully vaccinated before moving onto 6-9 mo boosters. It's the same logic fail in that people who don't want the vaccine are holding up logical uses.
The people who refuse to get a vaccine (or are convinced it's a hoax, conspiracy, etc) are fucking idiots. Good on Nurk for basically saying that without saying it.
Gonna play devils advocate here. Understand my father was a Bio-Chemist and i am all for getting vaccinated but hear me out. There are people in charge that have spread some worrisome rumors. Even Nurk says the US is the #1 country in the world. Many other countries want to take it down. Saying the vaccination is a way to destroy this country has done huge amounts of damage. What better way to destroy a country than to start a pandemic (China) and then provide a vaccine that might cause even more damage that we have not had the chance to fully research? Just the idea of this makes you wonder doesn't it?
How is it selfish ? the vaccine prevent you from developing a serious form of covid, but does nothing about getting and transmitting the virus. How is it selfish then ? There's no conspiracy, there are side effect we know about, and probably some we don't know about, considering the short development time and lack of tests compared to normal vaccines. I'm healthy and in my 20s. I have literally more chances of getting something as a side effect of the vaccine than ending up in the hospital due to covid. The vaccine is practically useless for my demographic But don't worry I'm still getting vaccinated as my POS president just made it mandatory.
