Aaron Rodgers, the famed Green Bay Packers quarterback, has admitted that he had misled the media last season regarding his COVID vaccination status. The four-time National Football League (NFL) MVP told on a recent appearance on the Joe Rogan podcast that he was not vaccinated against COVID as he had earlier claimed. 

“I thought there’s a possibility that I say ‘I’m immunized,’ maybe they understand what that means, maybe they don’t. Maybe, they follow up. They didn’t follow up. So then I go the season them thinking — some of them — that I was vaccinated”, Rodgers said. He also revealed that when club officials asked him about what message would be like to give to teammates who didn’t take the vaccine, Rodgers would say that each individual should be allowed to make decisions about their own bodies.

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However, Rodgers then contracted the virus and ended up missing a match against the Kansas City Chiefs. The Packers ended up paying a fine of $300,000 when the news surfaced, while Rodgers had to shell out $14,650. 

The star quarterback told Rogan that he is allergic to polyethylene glycol, PEG, a component of Moderna’s vaccine. He apparently visited the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) website, which advised people suffering from said allergy to not take the Moderna vaccine. When Rogan asked him why he did not take a vaccine from any other manufacturer, Rodgers said that he was weary of the vaccine manufactured by Johnson and Johnson since reports had emerged of the drug causing blood clots.

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Rodgers clarified that he is not “not an anti-vax flat earther” and has no intention of being “a divisive, polarizing figure.” It was him being a “critical thinker” that led to the decision of not getting vaccinated. Rodgers admitted that the “witch hunt” that went on after the news of him not being vaccinated was  “really difficult”.