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The Covid-19 Olympics could be a ‘Super-Evolutionary Event’

As for people with Olympic ties, who have been positive, McCloskey said he has not failed the system. Quite the opposite – it represented the cutting of a contagious timeline that each could have. “What we’re seeing is basically what we expected to see,” McCloskey told reporters at a press conference in Tokyo on July 19, a week before the opening ceremony. “If I thought all the tests we did would be negative, I wouldn’t mind doing the tests.”

Hey, about 91 positive cases among 15,000 competitors and tens of thousands of journalists and Olympic staff aren’t bad, right? For some disease experts and sports advocates, the answer is this: this is actually pretty bad because of what it says about preparations and what can happen later.

At least that’s it what some scientists and experts say. Hitoshi Oshitani, virologist He invented a strategy against Covid of Japan, he said Times of London that he did not believe it was possible for the Olympics to be safe. “There are some countries that don’t have a lot of cases and others that don’t have variants,” Oshitani said. Times. “We shouldn’t do the Olympics [an occasion] to spread the virus to these countries. There is little risk in the US and the UK that people will be vaccinated. But most countries in the world don’t have vaccines. “

McCloskey estimates that about 85 percent of people who come to Tokyo will get the vaccine. But it’s only about 22% of Japanese. That is one of the lowest rates of all rich countries. Combined with the relatively low number of cases in Japan, this means that the majority of the population still does not have antibodies against the virus. Epidemiologists are what they call “innocents”. This means that Japan, as a cliché, can be a successful victim. “It’s clear that the value of doing the Olympics is valued,” says Samuel Scarpino, director general of pathogen surveillance at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Pandemic Prevention Institute. “It’s certainly because it’s dangerous to gather people in a country that is basically vaccinated and, above all, lacks the immunity of the population.”

Asymptomatic and aerial proliferation of Covid-19 should be performed very frequently, at least once a day, to catch cases before infecting others. Strict and successful disease control measures US National Football League and National Basketball Association For example, he used all typical hygiene and distance measures, as well as hard testing, tracking, and isolation. The NFL conducted reverse transcription PCR tests on a daily basis, providing players and staff with single-purpose electronic devices that recorded close relationships; accumulated for 15 minutes or more counted as a higher risk. Over time, the NFL completed electronic communications with lively face-to-face conversations to determine the nature of those contacts. (Masked? Inside? While you’re eating?) “What the NBA did — or women’s basketball, which I recommended last year — was design and pull out a bubble. Once you’re there, you’re not going to be outside,” says Mt. resident Annie Sparrow. professors of health sciences and policy. Sinai Medical School. “There’s never a way to create a bubble at the Olympics. It can’t be done on this scale.”

In early July, it was published by Sparrow and a host of other U.S. researchers comment in New England Journal of Medicine he expressed many similar concerns from Oshitan. They went further, warning that the strategy carried out by McCloskey’s team was based on outdated information about the dynamics of the virus.

The article, meanwhile, echoed criticism from the World Players Association, an international team that works with sports unions around the world. The WPA has argued – without much influence, because the COI has not received a response – that the rules are considered, say, like contact with individual gymnastics on the rugby field or on the wide track. WPA representatives criticized the state of the shared rooms and gave playbooks advice on the occasional window on the windows, which is something that could be impossible in the extreme heat of summer in Tokyo. Also bad in the plan: allowing masks and personal protective equipment, using phone apps to track contacts instead of dedicated technology, and a list of other non-stellar interventions that WPA representatives said only require problems. . “There will never be zero risk when it comes to Covid, but there could certainly be more mitigation,” says Matthew Graham, WPA’s legal and player relations director. “We, as the athletes we represent, hope to be able to do this safely, but that doesn’t cost us any money.”


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