By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Portland Trail Blazers center Jusuf Nurkic said that he’s been trying to buy a supply of unused vaccines from the United States and send them to his native Bosnia.
Unfortunately, he’s not legally allowed to do it.
“They just have donations, but not enough to vaccinate the people,” Nurkic said in a story by ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne. “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.”
As of Thursday (15/7), Bosnia has recorded 205,238 coronavirus cases and 9,664 deaths in a population around 3,3 million. Among the victims is Nurkic’s grandmother who passed away after battling with the coronavirus for over two weeks.
“After 17 days, she survived the COVID,” Nurkic said. “Then on Day 19, she had a heart attack. It was unbelievable.”
There’s been an abundance of COVID-19 vaccines in the USA and Nurkic feels frustrated by the fact that he can’t purchase it to help the people of his country while others refuse to get it.
“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,” Nurkic said. “I just feel like humanity has kind of failed, because all the countries around should get at least some of those vaccines, right?”