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Source: https://www.scientificamerican.com/...kyo-olympics-arent-being-managed-experts-say/
COVID Risks at the Tokyo Olympics Aren’t Being Managed, Experts Say
Current prevention measures may not be enough to prevent an outbreak
By Maddie Bender on July 13, 2021
When officials postponed the Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo until 2021 last year, the announcement came amid similar decisions from professional sports leagues and regional and national stay-at-home orders. At the time, International Olympic Committee (IOC) organizers hoped that the extra year would buy the world time to get a handle on SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19, which had then recently been characterized as a pandemic by the World Health Organization.
The Olympic Games are set to go on later this month, with mitigation efforts such as physical barriers, social-distancing guidelines and viral testing in place to prevent cases from becoming clusters of infection. But as vaccination remains unevenly distributed worldwide—only about 17 percent of Japan’s population is fully vaccinated—and the more transmissible Delta variant spreads, experts warn that those measures may not be enough. Already, several athletes have tested positive for COVID-19 after arriving in Japan, raising concerns of a possible outbreak.
“It’s a perfect opening scene for a thrilling movie where everyone gets sick with Delta all over the world, and they trace it to the Olympics,” says Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease specialist at the University of California, San Francisco. “The Olympics are not only just a local potential superspreading event in a poorly vaccinated country but [could perhaps become] a global superspreading event.”
Brian McCloskey, chair of an independent expert panel advising the IOC on COVID-19 countermeasures, says that while individual cases are inevitable, the goal of the regulations is to prevent transmission chains and clusters from forming. But experts interviewed point to risks for viral transmission tied to individual sports and arenas, life in the Olympic Village and seeded infections from the broader community. Altogether, they indicate that without stricter mitigation measures than the ones introduced by the IOC, clusters of infection are likely to propagate....
COVID Risks at the Tokyo Olympics Aren’t Being Managed, Experts Say
Current prevention measures may not be enough to prevent an outbreak
By Maddie Bender on July 13, 2021
When officials postponed the Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo until 2021 last year, the announcement came amid similar decisions from professional sports leagues and regional and national stay-at-home orders. At the time, International Olympic Committee (IOC) organizers hoped that the extra year would buy the world time to get a handle on SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19, which had then recently been characterized as a pandemic by the World Health Organization.
The Olympic Games are set to go on later this month, with mitigation efforts such as physical barriers, social-distancing guidelines and viral testing in place to prevent cases from becoming clusters of infection. But as vaccination remains unevenly distributed worldwide—only about 17 percent of Japan’s population is fully vaccinated—and the more transmissible Delta variant spreads, experts warn that those measures may not be enough. Already, several athletes have tested positive for COVID-19 after arriving in Japan, raising concerns of a possible outbreak.
“It’s a perfect opening scene for a thrilling movie where everyone gets sick with Delta all over the world, and they trace it to the Olympics,” says Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease specialist at the University of California, San Francisco. “The Olympics are not only just a local potential superspreading event in a poorly vaccinated country but [could perhaps become] a global superspreading event.”
Brian McCloskey, chair of an independent expert panel advising the IOC on COVID-19 countermeasures, says that while individual cases are inevitable, the goal of the regulations is to prevent transmission chains and clusters from forming. But experts interviewed point to risks for viral transmission tied to individual sports and arenas, life in the Olympic Village and seeded infections from the broader community. Altogether, they indicate that without stricter mitigation measures than the ones introduced by the IOC, clusters of infection are likely to propagate....