Seattle Mariners facing COVID problems

Major League Baseball was hoping that 2021 would be different. With three different COVID vaccines on the market, the hope was that teams would be able to get through the season without an outbreak. There was added incentive as well; if a team reached the 85% vaccination threshold, restrictions would be lifted. However, for some teams, including the Seattle Mariners, that has not been enough of an incentive to reach that mark.

The Mariners are now paying the price. According to reports, they are dealing with a COVID issue on their roster, although the extent is unknown.

Seattle Mariners playing with fire by not being vaccinated

At this point, at least one unnamed player is known to have tested positive. The Mariners also rank amongst the teams with the lowest vaccination rates in the league, leading to the concern that this positive test could end up being a disaster.

The league has been relatively lucky thus far that they have avoided major issues related to the pandemic. The Nationals caused a scare when their opening series against the Mets was postponed due to COVID, but that had been the worst of things thus far.

The Yankees also had their own scare, with several coaches testing positive. However, given the vaccination rate on the team, they were able to continue without an issue. To this point, most of the players that have ended up sidelined due to COVID were because of side effects from the vaccine.

At this point, the Mariners will be going through testing and contact tracing. It is unknown as to how many games will be postponed due to this positive test, or if other players will test positive as well. But the fact that it took this long for a team to have this sort of potential outbreak speaks volumes to how well the league guidelines, and the vaccine program, has worked.

The Seattle Mariners have been amongst the teams with the lowest vaccination rate. As they played with fire, they have gotten burned by COVID.