Chiefs’ lineman/doctor Laurent Duvernay-Tardif on the fight against COVID-19
After the Super Bowl, the parade, and being honored by the national assembly of Quebec, Chiefs offensive lineman Laurent Duvernay-Tardif headed to a sun-splashed location for vacation.
When Duvernay-Tardif returned to his home in Canada, everything had changed, and it wasn’t just the weather. The COVID-19 pandemic had upended life for everyone.
“I came back on March 12, which was the first day of self-isolation here in Quebec,” Duvernay-Tardif told told John Kryk of the Toronto Sun. “I had so many conferences, media deals, partnerships and foundation activities lined up. It was going to be a busy, busy three weeks — before reporting back to Kansas City for spring camp.
“The first thing I thought was not, ‘Oh my God I’m not going to be able to do all this,’ but rather, ‘I’m in isolation. I won’t be able to help if they need me.’”
Duvernay-Tardif’s two weeks of quarantine are over, but he’s not able to help patients with the coronavirus. Although he graduated with a medical degree from McGill University in 2018, Duvernay-Tardif told the Sun he doesn’t have a license to practice.
Instead, he used his fame as a Super Bowl champion to emphasize the tips for staying safe: social distancing and hand washing.
“Flattening the curve and enforcing those behaviors to make sure people stay home right now is going to maybe help us prevent three times the number of fatalities down the road,” Duvernay-Tardif said. “Everything we’re doing right now, by way of individual sacrifices, is really, really critical for the outcome of this pandemic over the next few months.”
At this point, Duvernay-Tardif normally would be preparing for a offseason work in Kansas City. But OTAs have been canceled, and he couldn’t have taken part anyway. The Public Health Agency of Canada has advised citizens to avoid all non-essential travel outside of the country.
Chiefs trainers have been in touch with Duvernay-Tardif, the Canadian Press reported, giving him workouts and other ways to say in shape.
“You just try to do your best, and at the end of the day I feel we’re all really privileged as professional athletes and not really allowed to complain about training right now,” Duvernay-Tardif told the Canadian Press.
“I feel like I’ve got into a rhythm and built myself a training schedule where I’m able to do all the stuff I need to. Hopefully it’s going to help me transition once we’re allowed to go out and train like normal again.”
Duvernay-Tardif has spent his unexpected free time taking up a new hobby: carpentry. He told the Canadian Press he’s built a couple of tables from scratch.
“It’s manual work but you’ve really got to be delicate and pay attention to detail,” Duvernay-Tardif said. “You can’t be impulsive otherwise you’re going to miss an angle, miss a cut, be short or too long.
“With everything that’s going on and because we don’t know for how long we’ll have to isolate at home, it’s important to have structure and different projects.”
For now, Duvernay-Tardif sees no rush to return to football, even though he loves the game. And this has nothing to do with the carpentry work.
As a doctor, he knows what’s most important during the pandemic.
“There is going to be another football season after this one, and one after that, and one after that,” Duvernay-Tardif told the Toronto Sun. “That’s what we have to fight for right now, not the immediate spring training.
“This is bigger than football.”
This story was originally published April 17, 2020 at 9:20 AM.
