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Concerns for global spread of Zika mean Rio de Janeiro Olympics must not proceed
- ramon 10y agoI think this is a stupid statement made by people that are not in Rio. I live a longtime in Rio and never had Dengue, Zika or whatever.. right now it's cold in Rio de Janeiro so mosquitos are dead or dying, how are you going to get Zika with dead mosquitos right now? Stupids and racists from Harvard, search more references first!
- jbob2000 10y agoYour anecdotal evidence is much more valuable than a report put out by the world's top university. Thanks!
- 88872191 10y agoThe world's top university? Thanks for the memo.
- ramon 10y agoThis is exactly what I mean, it's just like have the top media company saying anything and the society just accepts it and period! I'm not saying that there's no Zika, I'm just saying that there's more of a "ohhh.. everybody is going to get it!" then anything else...
- draw_down 10y agoDon't worry, the virus will not be racist.
- mhurron 10y ago> I live a longtime in Rio and never had Dengue, Zika Don't be so sure about that. Most people who contract both of those don't know that they have them as the symptoms are so mild they are mistaken for a simple cold. But no, it's just racists pretending that diseases can spread. You can relax anyway, there is too much money to be made by those running the games in Rio to have it canceled. No one actually cares if people get sick.
- ramon 10y agoI'm not a poor person who doesn't access to the hospitals. I have access to private hospitals because I have the best paid health plan, I didn't get Zika, Dengue.. etc. Because I have anti-mosquito screens in my apartment, I protect myself..
- ceejayoz 10y agoYou presumably open your door at times, or even go outside. Access to hospitals is irrelevant. @mhurron pointed out these diseases can often present as a mild cold, for which you'd never go to the hospital. You may well have gotten them without really noticing.
- ramon 10y agoThis is a statement from someone that doesn't know Zika really, Zika the person feels really sick and feels their joints hurt a lot, is not like this is something that can go by without noticing! This is a really a statement from someone that doesn't understand what's Zika, people that don't understand what it's and what are the symptoms.
- detaro 10y agoSource? The WHO information about it doesn't sounds like it has to feel all that bad http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/zika/en/ http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/zika/en/ People with Zika virus disease can have symptoms that can include mild fever, skin rash, conjunctivitis, muscle and joint pain, malaise or headache. […] Treatment Zika virus disease is usually relatively mild and requires no specific treatment. People sick with Zika virus should get plenty of rest, drink enough fluids, and treat pain and fever with common medicines. If symptoms worsen, they should seek medical care and advice.
- bhouston 10y agoI was wondering about whether this would happen. I am not enough of an expert to make a call on this either way of course, but if experts decided this was the right call would it even be possible to cancel/reschedule the Olympics? Imagine the financial impact on Rio.
- cypherpunks01 10y agoWikipedia lists the only previously cancelled Olympics as 1916 (WWI) and 1940 and 1944 (WWII). Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Cancelled_Olympic_Games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Cancelled_Olympic_Gam...
- takno 10y agoSo it's happened 3 times out of a possible 30. Doesn't even seem that dramatic when you put it that way.
- giarc 10y agoI imagine Rio would be given the 2020 Summer Games. And then Tokyo would be moved to 2024 and so on. Just my guess though.
- tomp 10y agoWell, the fair outcome would be that Tokyo was cancelled altogether, if the allegations of corruptions [1] are true. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/may/11/tokyo-olympics-payment-diack-2020-games https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/may/11/tokyo-olympics...
- big_youth 10y agoWow, Japan is generally known as being clean and corruption free. I can only imagine the type of bribes Brazil and Russia handed out.
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- askyourmother 10y agoCome to Rio - watch the Olympians swim in the very dirty water they promised to clean but didn't! Catch zika, then fill out the police and insurance forms after you get robbed! Seriously though, Rio is a very very dangerous place to visit even for brasileros, let alone tourists, and the zika and chinkungya virus outbreaks are not helping either. Watch it on TV, from far away.
- blowski 10y agoAs a middle-income tourist who has had multiple holidays in Rio, the closest I've come to being robbed was by a taxi driver that wanted $200 to travel from Corcovado to Pao de Acucar. Seriously, it's like any other city in the world. If you walk around a dodgy area talking on an iPhone, by yourself, especially late at night, then you're asking for trouble. Be sensible and cautious, and Rio is a lovely place to go on holiday. EDIT: I guess I'm attracted to cities with higher crime rates.
- cven714 10y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=if6GLohPq8k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=if6GLohPq8k Not that incidents like this don't occur in other cities in the world, but it shows that avoiding dodgy areas at night might not be enough.
- bitL 10y agoCopacabana is a dodgy area already and Zona Norte is a warzone.
- ramon 10y agoImagine further out like Nova Iguaçu, I must have to go there with War Tanks at least so I can comeback alive!
- googletazer 10y agoYou can probably imagine where these people are going in 5, 10, 15 years - worse and worse offenses. Sounds like whoever will replace Dilma needs to legislate firing squads, or conceal carry.
- apalmer 10y agoIt should be considered, dont know if it makes sense but the pros and cons should be weighed and respected international health organizations should weigh in. Overall though, think given the fact the facilities have not been fully constructed, the Brazilian government is on the verge of collapse, and the risks of being a major disease vector is plausible... Should definitely consider delay or moving
- zodPod 10y agoI've thought this too. They pick some of the weirdest places to try to host this stuff. I guess they're trying to bring the areas up or something but if the place can't handle daily life what makes anyone think they can handle a big event like this?
- douche 10y agoNobody else is willing to do it/bribe the IOC sufficently. I'm really glad Boston bailed.
- icebraining 10y agoHow is Rio a "weird place"? They're in a bad situation right now, as any city with an outbreak of a virus and with a political crisis would be, but it's major world metropolis of 12M people with plenty of international business visitors and a GDP of 200 billion USD. They accommodate 900k tourists during Carnival alone.
- exDM69 10y agoI presume that the parent is referring to the locations of the Olympic venues around Rio, which are scattered around the outskirts of the city.
- exDM69 10y agoI presume that the parent is referring to the locations of the Olympic venues around Rio, which are scattered around the outskirts of the city.
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- dsfyu404ed 10y agoI wonder if the medical community is also working with the state department, airlines and travel agencies to make sure people get a stern warning before they buy plane tickets to Brazil and an even sterner warning when they get back. Considering the political forces that need to be involved in moving (or not) the games it seems foolish to not have a safety net if "please move the games" doesn't work.
- gtirloni 10y agoThe Ministry of Health in Brazil has been getting a new head of department every few months, depending on the backstage deals the president has had to make in order to keep her government in place. So no, I wouldn't count on any coordinated actions being spearheaded by the government. They are pretty busy running around like headless chickens, which means insisting in inneficient methods to eliminate the mosquito (e.g. fuming). Some airlines have been allowing passengers to refund tickets to areas affected by Zika [1]. I think every decent travel agency should worry its customers that traveling to Brazil at this time is not a good idea. Besides the health issues, Brazil is ousting its president today and most leftist parties and unions have vouched to stop the country with strikes, blockades and protests. You may get stuck in a 2-hour traffic jam on your way to the games. 1 - http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/zika-virus-major-airlines-refunding-tickets-to-south-america-a6839151.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/zika-virus-m...
- kordless 10y agoGood luck on that. People in dissonance don't want to hear about it.
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- mc32 10y agoThat's not going to happen -- not when their economy is in a nosedive and they are embroiled in impeachment proceedings. At most they'll spray and fumigate the skeeters for the few weeks the activities take place and then go back to "normal".
- mariusz79 10y agoThe show must go on.
- ehmuidifici 10y agoBrazilian here, Ive been in Rio a couple of times (living in Sao Paulo right now, who also has problems w/Aedes Aegypti): Come to Brazil if you wish, but take care. The Aedes Aegypti mosquito is all around and can spread not only Zika, but Chikungunya (kindly named "chico cunha") and Dengue. Make good use of insect repellent, watch your stuff when walking on beaches (don't forget robbers and thieves) and think twice about trusting someone. As someone said before, every city in the world has its problems and brazilian cities have them also. Personally, I will not go to Olympics just because hotel prices on Rio skyrocketed and are almost impractical.
- Chris2048 10y ago> every city in the world has its problems and brazilian cities have them also. At the same magnitude?
- sremani 10y agoI am mixed about this whole episode, at one level there is bias against developing countries. On the other end, Brazil did not do any favors for itself, with zika, political turmoil etc. But they did pull of a FIFA world cup, so I am a bit more optimistic.
- davesque 10y agoSo does "fold" just mean "times"? I always thought it meant 2^x times.
- xutopia 10y agoYes. It's quite commonly used in British English afaik. You can say "This brought a twofold increase in clientele", "We saw a threefold weight increase in affected mammals". I've never seen it used passed "fourfold" though.
- cjslep 10y ago"Tenfold" seems common enough.
- marcoperaza 10y agoAccording to Google Trends (which only shows five at a time), these are the top five *folds between two and ten, excluding sevenfold which is off the charts because of Avenged Sevenfold: https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=twofold%2Cthreefold%2Cfourfold%2Ceightfold%2Ctenfold https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=twofold%2Cthreefold%...
- jakub_g 10y agoYep, N-fold = N times http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tenfold http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tenfold http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/twofold http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/twofold
- DannyBee 10y agoSerious question: Has anyone seen an article or study about the microcephaly effects on pregnancy where the main population studied was not in brazil? I have yet to see a study that links it to microcephaly for anyone who has not been in brazil for a long time. I realize the mosquito isn't common, but brazil also does things like: "secretly spray tons and tons of pesticide on their populus", etc. Given these are all correlative studies, i'd love to see something from a country where there aren't a ton of possible other variables. (especially given zika has been around and even common forever and it's only now that this seems to be an issue) You know, before the tourism economies of all of these other countries are completely destroyed.
- rubidium 10y agoYes, microcephaly from Zika has been detected in many south american countries. CDC supports the link, as does scientific consensus: http://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2016/s0413-zika-microcephaly.html http://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2016/s0413-zika-microcepha... It's the fat cats who don't want to move/postpone the Olympics most. They have the most to lose.
- pge 10y agoThe article linked in the original post refers to a retrospective analysis in French Polynesia (the source of the virus in Brazil) that found a huge increase in Zika-induced microcephaly there as well.
- mixmastamyk 10y agoArticle said the virulent strain came from French Polynesia (aka Tahiti).
- ChicagoBoy11 10y agoThis article is idiotic if the main reason for cancelling the game is actually some "global spread" of Zika. Rio is not some city in the middle of nowhere from which no flights are coming in and out of, and now suddenly this massive international influx of visitors will come in -- it is a world-class city, a financial hub of the largest country in the continent. If we take London 2012 as a benchmark, estimates there are that the olympics yielded a 13% increase in foreign visitors from the previous summer. And that is London, a place where access from other destinations is cheaper, the infrastructure better, and a lot more appealing to U.S. visitors (due to some of the things cited above). It is completely reasonable to expect that the delta in Rio should be roughly the same, if not smaller. The fact is that the"impact" on travel due to the Olympics will be negligible in a city like Rio -- and the economic impact is CERTAINLY negative, unless you are drinking the Kool-Aid of organizers. I'm fine with cancelling the games, but claiming that not doing so will lead to a much riskier global health situation than the one we are already living is hogwash.
- maxerickson 10y agoI would expect the differences you mention to result in a higher delta for Rio, they would contribute to a lower base rate of travel making the event travel relatively larger.
- ChicagoBoy11 10y agoWhen I wrote my original comment I certainly had a model that the base rate of travel was pretty comparable to LDN, but I looked at actual figures from a few years ago and saw that it is in fact 5x smaller. Nevertheless, the 500,000 figure cited would represent a ~25% bump in the number of visitors (if we use 2012 figures). If you consider the area in Brazil most affected by Zika (which would include São Paulo), then this drops to 10%. You then also have to realize that a lot of those visitors displaced people who did not travel to Rio because of the olympics, which is an effect that is widely documented. Taken into account, I think it is plausible to suggest that the real impact of travel that we'd be seeing would be in the low teens or single digits. But I think it is certainly debatable, and I guess this is the only point I really wanted to make in my comment -- that THIS is really the focus if you wanted to argue that the games ought to be suspended, but that the article doesn't address it in the least.
- S_A_P 10y agoZika is already in Houston, Dallas and other Texas cities. I dont know if it is tourism that brought it here or not, but it has enough transmission vectors that its only a matter of time before its everywhere.
- wyldfire 10y agoEver since the news of Zika causing microcephaly came up I have been wondering whether it's a net benefit to humanity/homeostasis if we were to exterminate Aedis Aegypti. Can Zika spread among humans already? It would seem like a huge risk to the future of humanity if this infectious disease interferes with reproduction. What's the worst-case scenario for letting Aedis Aegypti live? Is it better than the worst-case scenario for exterminating the species?
- bryanlarsen 10y agoarticle suggesting that, and lots of discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11536074 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11536074
- maxerickson 10y agoZika is a big threat to fetuses that are gestating while the mother is infected. After a woman gains immunity, there is little threat to any babies she might carry. So it is a very serious concern at the moment, but it is not any sort of existential problem. It will likely not even be a medium term problem (there is early research towards vaccines).
- smellf 10y ago> After a woman gains immunity, there is little threat to any babies she might carry. It is way too early to make that claim. You're also ignoring the Guillain–Barré cases that are suspected to have been caused by Zika.
- cjbprime 10y agoI think the concern would be dominated by the side-effects of the method we use to perform the total extermination, rather than the side-effects of Aedis Aegypti being extinct.
- wyldfire 10y agoI vaguely recall hearing about an effort to release sterilized males that would effectively reduce the population local to where they're released. That seemed to be a very safe way to change the environment. The only difference might be the scale by which we could execute that method.
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- ramon 10y agoJust wanted to reply to all and say: If you are afraid of Zika, Dengue or whatever the mosquitos transmits, don't get out of your houses! I will go after those bastards! Best to all, Signed: The mosquito killer! :p
- ck2 10y agoCould people accidentally bring back live mosquitoes in their luggage and such that are carriers? If so, could spread the world at lightning speed. I think there is also concern for the athletes in that the water is absolutely filthy there.
- marcosdumay 10y agoThe mosquito already lives in every place the climate does not kill it. It's the spread of the virus that's scaring everybody.
- msimpson 10y agoThanks to this article I am now aware of a man named Dick Pound.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- transfire 10y agoWhat? Are they planning a culling, on which they will blame Zika and the Olympics? Otherwise, this make zero sense. Despite all the hype, Zika is not the end of the world. Most people who get it hardly notice and get over it in rather short order just as one gets over a cold.
- InglouriousG 10y agoWhat about the microcephalic babies born to people infected with Zika? That's not exactly a hardly noticeable side effect...
- tim333 10y agoIt's kind of a shame that there is probably a solution to Zika sitting there waiting for regulatory approval in Oxitec's GM mosquitoes which were first successfully trialed in 2009. Maybe after another one or two million people have caught Zika they'll get around to using it.
- neves 10y agoWhat will prevent the outbreak is the weather in Rio. The Zika mosquito takes 3 to 4 weeks to reproduce http://www.denguevirusnet.com/life-cycle-of-aedes-aegypti.html http://www.denguevirusnet.com/life-cycle-of-aedes-aegypti.ht... and it loves hot and wet weather. The autumn in Rio is the coldest and driest in a long time http://g1.globo.com/rio-de-janeiro/noticia/2016/03/outono-no-rio-sera-mais-frio-e-tera-menos-chuvas-esse-ano.html http://g1.globo.com/rio-de-janeiro/noticia/2016/03/outono-no... When the Olympics arrive, the mosquito will be in their lowest population count. If you consider that the Olympics tourists are rich ones, that will spend most of their times in air conditioned environments, the risk is really very low.