The Arizona Cardinals have thus far been extremely fortunate that they have not had any players have to land on the COVID-19 reserve, either testing positive for the virus or having had close contact with someone who has. However, before training camp began, team owner Michael Bidwill contracted the virus when he was traveling on the East Coast and had to be hospitalized.
He detailed some of the experience on the television broadcast of the team’s Red and White practice. “It’s terrible,” he said.
Bidwill said he was even super careful and still managed to get sick.
“I was wearing masks,” he said. “I had hand sanitizer that I brought every place. I stayed away from everyone.”
He believes he must have contracted it from a surface he did not clean well enough.
He did not experience some of the awful things other have with COVID-19, but it was still serious.
“I thought I would be part of the 85% of the population that would have no or mild symptoms,” he said. “I wasn’t. I ended up in the hospital in an ICU for five days. It was an awful experience. I never had major problems breathing but I did have severe headaches and a temperature that kept spiking to 103 degrees. It was very scary.”
He was very grateful to the night nurses who took care of him, as that was when his temperature spiked most often.
Bidwill knows that it will be critical to keeping the players healthy because even one positive test can lead to a group of players having to be isolated and potentially missing games.
[vertical-gallery id=443088]
Listen to the latest from Cards Wire’s Jess Root on his podcast, Rise Up, See Red. Subscribe on Apple podcasts or Spotify.
Latest show:
Previous shows:
[protected-iframe id=”b982993d8c20b3c1204a481770f7fbae-112738498-106269283″ info=”https://api.spreaker.com/v2/episodes/29016811/download.mp3″ ]
and
[protected-iframe id=”682ebb6e7ef6b83ea73b8875d2f5241d-112738498-106269283″ info=”https://api.spreaker.com/v2/episodes/27243565/download.mp3″ ]