Here’s how serious Stephen A. Smith’s COVID-19 case was:
The day after a Cowboys playoff meltdown, he was restrained, even somber at times.
That should be all you need to know about the COVID infection that landed Smith in the hospital over the holidays and kept him off the air in recent weeks.
Smith, who has perhaps the largest megaphone in sports media, has advocated for broad vaccine mandates in sports. Though he said last month he had not yet received a booster shot, he credited the vaccine for saving his life.
Doctors said, “had I not been vaccinated, I wouldn’t be here,” said Smith, who thanked his doctors by name on air. “That’s how bad I was. ... I can’t tell you how lucky and sincerely blessed I am to be sitting here with you guys today because two and a half, three weeks ago, I didn’t know if I was gonna make it.”
Smith detailed the battle that ultimately landed him in the hospital. “I had a 103-degree fever every night, woke up with chills, pools of sweat, headaches were massive, coughing profusely.” At that point, he said, he checked into a hospital on New Year’s Eve.
“I had pneumonia, both lungs. My liver was bad,” he said. “It ravaged me to the point where even now I have to monitor my volume, get in the gym every day, walk before you run, work your way back, because I’m still not 100 percent with my lungs.”
Smith also poked at the perception that the omicron variant is mild, and managed to take a shot at his sister.
“In my case, it was totally different. ...Everybody’s different. My sister smokes and she had COVID and she was fine in 3-4 days. Me? I don’t smoke and it almost took me out,” he said.
“I think the one thing to emphasize the importance of, no matter how you feel about the vaccine, that mask is important, because you don’t know how the next person is affected,” he continued. “How I’m affected is different from how you were affected.”
