Brazil’s Zika problem is inconveniently not ending.
May 12, 2016 7:24 AM   Subscribe

 
"unless those with a financial stake in the Games planned poorly"

Hard to imagine that ever happening.
posted by jeather at 7:31 AM on May 12, 2016 [35 favorites]


Good for them - every rational person has been wondering. Let us hope that the Olympic Committee avoids the pending disaster...
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 7:31 AM on May 12, 2016 [1 favorite]


Congratulations, world. This is what you get when you reject Chicago. Potential hotbed for a global pandemic. I hope you're happy.
posted by phunniemee at 7:37 AM on May 12, 2016 [10 favorites]


Not to mention that no one knows how the current really insane political crisis will end, and "rioting and flames, flames everywhere" is certainly one possibility.
posted by selfnoise at 7:38 AM on May 12, 2016 [2 favorites]


selfnoise: "Not to mention that no one knows how the current really insane political crisis will end, and "rioting and flames, flames everywhere" is certainly one possibility."

Hey now, not 'til November!
posted by chavenet at 7:40 AM on May 12, 2016 [24 favorites]


According to my anti-contraception family members Zika isn't a problem because microcephalic children are "really really happy". So everybody head to the Olympics and get your unprotected freak on!
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 7:45 AM on May 12, 2016 [24 favorites]


Congratulations, world. This is what you get when you reject Chicago. Potential hotbed for a global pandemic. I hope you're happy.

Not sure Chicago could have survived all the politics and shenanigans that an Olympic Games can bring to a city.
posted by ZeusHumms at 7:46 AM on May 12, 2016 [16 favorites]


Even with the riots and flames, US cable news networks would still remain tightly focused on security guys standing around cars outside of a building in which Trump and Ryan. (Seriously. I want to hear more about Brazil, despite living in the United States, where a presidential election is months away. Oh wait. Yeah, it's months away. I keep thinking the whole impeachment-corruption/Zika/Olympics trifecta will blow up with big media here soon, but no.)
posted by raysmj at 7:47 AM on May 12, 2016 [7 favorites]


Not to mention the fact that the water is horribly polluted.
posted by Ham Snadwich at 7:48 AM on May 12, 2016 [11 favorites]


But unless those with a financial stake in the Games planned poorly, they will have cancellation insurance, legal escape clauses for force majeure, and an exit strategy.

If history is any indicator, the most pressing impediment to the financial backers of the Rio 2016 moving or rescheduling the games is the risk of tripping over the piles of currency arranged into haphazard piles on the office floor. Anyone doing business with the IOC is such a de facto amoral sociopath that they couldn't give half a shit about a pandemic of birth defects or accelerating a global health crisis. There's money to be made on the backs of unpaid athletes! Forget all about the uncontrolled outbreak of disease, and the open sewer that is the harbor. The games must go on!
posted by Mayor West at 7:48 AM on May 12, 2016 [34 favorites]


The Olympics are huge ratings for news networks. I think that should tell you why you won't hear anything about this in the US media.
posted by dilaudid at 7:49 AM on May 12, 2016 [9 favorites]


I wonder if athletes are going to refuse to go, though. The US recently canceled some baseball games in Puerto Rico because players were concerned about the risk of Zika.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 7:55 AM on May 12, 2016 [2 favorites]


Regrettably, instead of discussing the alternatives, both the International Olympic Committee and the World Health Organization seem to be in deep denial. Asked about Zika, the most senior member of the IOC, Dick Pound, mocked it as “a manufactured crisis” for anyone but pregnant women (manufactured by whom?).

Denial is now an Olympic event. This is going to be interesting/scary to watch; we've got a clear statement of the bottom-line risk involved with creating potentially hundreds of thousands of Zika carriers and sending them around the world. Who will prevail, the sports networks or our modern health information systems?
posted by sneebler at 7:57 AM on May 12, 2016 [7 favorites]


What will prevail, caution or greed? Hmm, I wonder!
posted by entropicamericana at 7:58 AM on May 12, 2016 [55 favorites]


Is person-to-person transmission a big threat with Zika? I thought it was mostly transmitted by mosquitoes. There's some risk of sexual transmission, but not a ton, because it doesn't have a very long incubation period. I think the threat is mostly to people who go to Brazil for the Olympics, to their sexual partners, and to any children they might conceive during or soon after the Olympics.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 8:01 AM on May 12, 2016 [3 favorites]


ongratulations, world. This is what you get when you reject Chicago. Potential hotbed for a global pandemic. I hope you're happy.


I believe Brazil was picked in 2009.
posted by Artw at 8:01 AM on May 12, 2016


Ham Snadwich: Not to mention the fact that the water is horribly polluted.

In 1990 I did some rowing in Boston's Charles River basin, and I remember the black water permanently staining my t-shirts from hoisting the boats out of the water. Also, a cut on my hand stubbornly refused to heal until we quit rowing for the winter.

So I can't even imagine how sick those athletes are going to get, which is a damn shame. (Much less the poor, poor people who have to live there, I know.)
posted by wenestvedt at 8:02 AM on May 12, 2016 [7 favorites]


Honestly, I wasn't in favor of Chicago. I love Chicago, and I wouldn't wish the Olympics on a city that I care about.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 8:03 AM on May 12, 2016 [47 favorites]


I wonder if athletes are going to refuse to go, though.

There's an awful lot at stake either way. Missing something that one has been training so long for has repercussions for athletes, teams, and sponsors. For example, Australia’s Olympic athletes urged to focus on preparation, not negative reports coming out of Rio.
posted by ZeusHumms at 8:05 AM on May 12, 2016


I think the threat is mostly to people who go to Brazil for the Olympics, to their sexual partners, and to any children they might conceive during or soon after the Olympics.

You're leaving out the folks who go to Brazil for the Olympics, then return to their homes in places where Aedes mosquitoes are common, but Zika hasn't penetrated yet.
posted by sparklemotion at 8:06 AM on May 12, 2016 [68 favorites]


Yeah, that's true. I think it will make it to those places eventually, but the Olympics could speed up the process.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 8:07 AM on May 12, 2016 [1 favorite]


And of course, climate change means that the habitat for the Zika-spreading mosquitoes is expanding.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 8:08 AM on May 12, 2016 [4 favorites]


I think Pyongyang should get the Olympics. They already have the totalitarian infrastructure in place; it could be trivially adapted to enforcing sponsors' branding rights.
posted by acb at 8:15 AM on May 12, 2016 [16 favorites]


Just when you thought the IOC couldn't be any more repugnant.
posted by tocts at 8:18 AM on May 12, 2016 [1 favorite]


The WHO and the CDC need to be more aggressive on this.
posted by humanfont at 8:23 AM on May 12, 2016 [17 favorites]


I wonder if athletes are going to refuse to go, though. The US recently canceled some baseball games in Puerto Rico because players were concerned about the risk of Zika.
...
Yeah, that's true. I think it will make it to those places eventually, but the Olympics could speed up the process.


The article actually explicitly addresses both of these points.

This was a very interesting read. I wonder if the WHO will finally issue a statement? Their silence is egregious at this point.
posted by bologna on wry at 8:37 AM on May 12, 2016 [2 favorites]


I wonder if the WHO will finally issue a statement? Their silence is egregious at this point.

Click the second link in the FPP, click on "Media Centre", click on first link: Zika virus and the 2016 Rio Olympic and Paralympic Games
posted by Etrigan at 8:42 AM on May 12, 2016 [1 favorite]


Well, I'm sure the IOC will do the right thing and put concerns for global public health ahead of short term monetary gain.
posted by mosk at 8:43 AM on May 12, 2016 [14 favorites]


That article presents a very strong argument.
posted by OmieWise at 8:44 AM on May 12, 2016 [1 favorite]


From the WHO statement:

"avoid visiting impoverished and over-crowded areas in cities and towns with no piped water and poor sanitation (ideal breeding grounds of mosquitoes) where the risk of being bitten is higher."

I'm sure that is great advice for the visitors, but the bigger context? Wow.
posted by soylent00FF00 at 8:49 AM on May 12, 2016 [10 favorites]


The Golden Age of the Olympics was long long ago. These days it's just a bit of spectacle to gussy up a money grab for TV networks and IOC insiders. If this is the death knell for the Olympics as we now know it, I say fine let them die.
posted by OHenryPacey at 8:58 AM on May 12, 2016 [5 favorites]




"Is person-to-person transmission a big threat with Zika? I thought it was mostly transmitted by mosquitoes."

The vector is mosquitoes, but the host reservoir is people (primates, generally, but mostly people in this case). When someone with Zika travels somewhere without Zika but with the Aedes mosquito, there's the chance that it will then move into the human population there via mosquitoes, forming a reservoir. That's bad. With only a few travelers and mosquito control in the new area, this isn't that likely. But the more travelers, the more likely. Once it's got a foothold, the only way to control it is to limit the vector (ideally indirectly via vaccination).

Because adult infections are usually mild or asymptomatic, when travelers return, they are going to be out and about, exposed to mosquitoes.

Most international Olympic travelers are going to be more affluent people who live in countries with good mosquito control. So that's good. But some of those will be people who live in countries with poor control, and some of those will be people who aren't quite so affluent (and less likely to be diagnosed), and in any case sheer numbers will make the less likely, more likely.

Zika is going to eventually spread through the tropical and subtropical coastal Americas, regardless, and to other warm parts of the world where Aedes is common. But Olympic travelers represent a truly diverse set of global travelers and so it's hard to imagine that they won't facilitate the spread of the virus more quickly and to more diverse parts of the globe than otherwise would be the case. Some of those might be some poor, tropical African or Asian countries that don't expect the virus and are not prepared to combat it. And this would be especially unfortunate because there's pretty good reason to believe that there will be a vaccination within a couple of years, so the longer it's mostly restricted to tropical South America and the Caribbean, the better.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 9:07 AM on May 12, 2016 [25 favorites]


Poor Brazil. It's had a Fukushima run of luck.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 9:16 AM on May 12, 2016 [3 favorites]


The vector is mosquitoes, but the host reservoir is people (primates, generally, but mostly people in this case). When someone with Zika travels somewhere without Zika but with the Aedes mosquito, there's the chance that it will then move into the human population there via mosquitoes, forming a reservoir. That's bad. With only a few travelers and mosquito control in the new area, this isn't that likely. But the more travelers, the more likely. Once it's got a foothold, the only way to control it is to limit the vector (ideally indirectly via vaccination).

The disease can also be transmitted sexually for up to several weeks after symptoms end, as live virus has been previously discovered in the semen of infected men. The recommendation is to avoid unprotected sex for at least eight weeks after returning from an area with circulating Zika virus.
posted by Noms_Tiem at 9:23 AM on May 12, 2016 [7 favorites]


I've lived in the city of Chicago for 20 years; burbs as a kid. I love my city. I in no way want the hot mess that is the Olympics delivered upon it. However...a Formula One race, that I could get behind. Can you imagine those cars winding through the loop? With LSD as the straightaway? That would be amazing. Do it the same weekend as the Air Show. Blue Angels up high and F1 in the streets. Cats and dogs living together.
posted by MarvinTheCat at 9:26 AM on May 12, 2016 [5 favorites]


Blame it on Rio...
posted by atomicmedia at 9:29 AM on May 12, 2016 [2 favorites]


"May your city host the Olympics" -- mid 21st-century imprecatory curse
posted by prize bull octorok at 9:34 AM on May 12, 2016 [57 favorites]


Because adult infections are usually mild or asymptomatic, when travelers return, they are going to be out and about, exposed to mosquitoes.

I'm waiting to hear whether Zika does the same thing to the stem cells of adults it does to the fetus' and children's, because if it does, we are going to see an epidemic of very premature aging among those 'asymptomatic' cases.
posted by jamjam at 9:42 AM on May 12, 2016 [2 favorites]


In 1990 I did some rowing in Boston's Charles River basin, and I remember the black water permanently staining my t-shirts from hoisting the boats out of the water.

I love that dirty water.
posted by escabeche at 9:49 AM on May 12, 2016 [6 favorites]


I wonder if the WHO will finally issue a statement? Their silence is egregious at this point.

Click the second link in the FPP, click on "Media Centre", click on first link: Zika virus and the 2016 Rio Olympic and Paralympic Games


Well damn, thank you. I was even all over that website and yet somehow missed that entirely.

So, is it just me or did that statement pretty much say nothing? I mean, essentially they're taking zero position on the matter of moving the games? Wouldn't they be the official body to refer to for guidance?
posted by bologna on wry at 9:50 AM on May 12, 2016


jamjam, Guillain-Barré syndrome is a serious complication of Zika infection in adults, and can have life-altering consequences.

According to WHO's Zika Situation Report, "In the context of Zika virus circulation, 13 countries and territories worldwide have reported an increased incidence of Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) and/or laboratory confirmation of a Zika virus infection among GBS cases."
posted by sneebler at 9:54 AM on May 12, 2016 [5 favorites]


I think the threat is mostly to people who go to Brazil for the Olympics, to their sexual partners, and to any children they might conceive during or soon after the Olympics.

The Athletes' Village is, by all reports, an orgiastic fuckfest that even Caligula would need a rest from. So intra-athlete transmission seems like a high probability.

Prediction: the Olympics will go ahead as planned, a few mid-to-low athletes will refuse to go (top tier won't want to lose their shot at the podium and/or sponsorship deals), and in a year or so there will be headlines like "Zika is everywhere stop having children how could we have ever known this would happen."
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 9:54 AM on May 12, 2016 [30 favorites]


I never would have expected this. I mean, yellow? Black or red, absolutely. Blue, even, maybe. But we're going to lose the game because we didn't go after yellow aggressively enough, super early on?

No matter how many times I play Pandemic, it's still got a few surprises left.
posted by gurple at 9:57 AM on May 12, 2016 [28 favorites]


However...a Formula One race, that I could get behind. Can you imagine those cars winding through the loop? With LSD as the straightaway?

Sure, take the Oak Street curve at racing speed, that'll be fun!

I believe Brazil was picked in 2009.

Rio and Chicago were in the running against each other for this same games. There was thought that Chicago had a good chance, but in the end it became clear the IOC had been in the tank for Rio all along and we never had a chance.

</derail>

I'm a big Olympics fan, I'm always glued to them when they happen. But yeah, that linked article at least convinces me that I sure as hell am not going anywhere near Brazil for a while. I'd hate to see the whole thing canceled, but pretending this isn't a serious issue could lead to a whole lot of sick people.
posted by dnash at 10:00 AM on May 12, 2016 [4 favorites]


There are a couple more months until the Olympics. Enough time for the world to get significantly more horrified about Zika, particularly as more babies are born.

Maybe horrified enough that it's not 500,000 tourists, but more like 250,000. And then what would be worse for Rio, from a purely shortsighted perspective? Not having the Games at all, or having the Games but getting half the economic boost?
posted by gurple at 10:07 AM on May 12, 2016


Rio and Chicago were in the running against each other for this same games.

Right. In 2009. The current Zika outbreak reached South America in 2015.
posted by Artw at 10:36 AM on May 12, 2016


Rio and Chicago were in the running against each other for this same games.

Right. In 2009. The current Zika outbreak reached South America in 2015.


I don't think phunniemee was accusing the IOC of knowing that Zika would be a thing at the time.
posted by Etrigan at 10:41 AM on May 12, 2016 [1 favorite]


I practically had a panic attack reading the HPHR article. Holy shit. Holy shit. Not a great time to be a pregnant lady in an area with Aedes aegypti. I had been trying to not think about Zika.
posted by permiechickie at 11:10 AM on May 12, 2016 [2 favorites]


Just hoping that CRISPR in people or mosquitos arrives soon enough to deal with some of this shit, aside from the probably horrible unintended consequences that it will have anyway.
posted by permiechickie at 11:11 AM on May 12, 2016


Here on the outskirts of Rio (we pronounce it Rye-o), we have already have regular locally transmitted outbreaks of West Nile, Equine encephalitis, and Dengue, and were ground zero for the first Chikungunya outbreak in the US last year. There are plenty and Aedes spp, including aegypti and albopictus, as any resident can testify. The state has a series of sentinel chicken installations and, in season, provide regular updates to which arbovirus diseases are circulating. Dengue, Zika, and other mosquito borne diseases are monitored through serologic testing of possible cases submitted by physicians and county health departments (most recent reports here - mistakenly labelled arbovirus surveillance when flavivirus disease also is included).

No Olympic athletes in Rio though, but Zika is already here and likely to become established, like its cousins. I'm not so sure travel restrictions will help. In South America, the only places where Zika has not been circulating are those places where they haven't looked. Consider Colombia. A report of a cluster of microcephaly cases this year led to enhanced serologic surveillance which revealed evidence of widespread transmission suggesting the virus had been active in the country, unrecognized, for at least 2-3 years. There is so much travel between the Caribbean and South American already, as evidenced by the frequent travel related cases cited in the Florida reports, that local transmission is a foregone conclusion.
posted by sudogeek at 11:26 AM on May 12, 2016 [8 favorites]


I practically had a panic attack reading the HPHR article. Holy shit. Holy shit. Not a great time to be a pregnant lady in an area with Aedes aegypti. I had been trying to not think about Zika.

There have been 0 locally acquired vector-borne cases of Zika reported in the United States. If the Olympics happen, people won't be coming home from Rio until the end of August.

DEET and Picardin are apparently both safe for pregnant and breastfeeding women. Use them, try to minimize being outside with exposed skin, and save your worries for all of the other ways that society will tell you that you're letting your baby down (you aren't).
posted by sparklemotion at 11:31 AM on May 12, 2016 [3 favorites]


The Zika Olympiad needs a logo.

So I made one.
posted by ocschwar at 11:34 AM on May 12, 2016 [46 favorites]


Poor Brazil. It's had a Fukushima run of luck.

This kind of sells the Zika virus too short — it has the potential to cause more birth defects and serious health problems than the Fukushima disaster ever will. (If it hasn't already.)
posted by Johnny Assay at 12:11 PM on May 12, 2016 [4 favorites]


Hopefully this slow moving trainwreck is a precursor to the horribly corrupt IOC being shut down / reformed and not too many innocent people will get hurt or get their hopes crushed?

I like to dream.
posted by sid at 12:28 PM on May 12, 2016


There's nobody with the power to shut down the IOC. FIFA's just as corrupt, and sure they excised some of the assbags but the new ones now know they have to be more discreet in their assbaggery. The only way to shut down the IOC is to investigate literally every member (unlikely to happen when so many IOC members are royalty), arrest them all for corruption, and have every country on the planet onboard. Then make it a UN org.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 12:35 PM on May 12, 2016 [1 favorite]


Over the past couple of years, I've become a fan of men's gymnastics, because my youngest son is a competitive gymnast and I'm a curious person. So one thing I'm aware of is that the US gymnasts who hope to compete in the Olympics are in the process of a months-long training process designed to lead up to a peak at the Olympics. Gymnastics skill degrade very rapidly at lower levels of training, but the levels required to get a gymnast's top skills in good shape aren't sustainable—you can't do your best gymnastics 365 days a year. This means that changing the dates of the Olympics by more than a little could make a huge difference in performance for at least some gymnasts.

Athletes have also been traveling to Rio for training, and for the April Test Event. Test Events are one way national teams and individuals can qualify to compete in the Olympics, and also act as dress rehearsals for the facilities. Athletes may travel to the test event even if already qualified, in order to experience the competition and get familiar with the location. Two members of the USA 2012 Olympic men's gymnastics team, who are still on the national team, participated in the test event. Gymnasts are used to competing in a variety of venues that are new to them, so this isn't like to be a really big factor, but a change of location—especially if it involves a significantly different time zone—may also affect athletes' performances.

I assume there are other sports that are similar.

I'm generally in favor of getting the Olympics out of Rio. During the Test Event in April, there were problems in the various facilities, such as the power periodically going out in the gymnastics facility. During competitions. Also in April, an elevated ocean-front cycling path collapsed just three months after it was built, killing two people. As someone mentioned up-thread, the water where canoe, kayak, and rowing competitions will be held is terribly polluted. Plus Brazilian politics. Plus now Zika.

I feel, though, for the athletes whose Olympics may be seriously affected by this. I was around for the US boycott of the 1980 Olympics, which cost some athletes in sports with short lifespans, like women's gymnastics, their only chance at an Olympics. A lot of the best men on the US gymnastics team now are in their mid-20s. They were at the Olympics in 2012, but this is likely to be their last shot, and of course all the athletes want to be able to perform as best they can.

At the same time, over the past decade I've gotten increasingly uncomfortable with the waste that goes into building Olympic villages and then abandoning them. World Championships take place at existing facilities, and I've wondered if Olympics could do something like that as well. Of course, unless you follow a specific sport between Olympic years, World Championships don't actually generate a lot of excitement. Part of what gets audiences excited about the Olympics, I imagine, is the excitement and spectacle of all the athletes being gathered in the same place, the spectacle of the opening and closing ceremonies. An Olympics that was divided into, say, three locations wouldn't be the same. But maybe what we are paying too much for our big splashy spectacle.

I see in some of the discussion over Zika the idea of sending different sports to different venues, and I wonder if being forced to do so as a public safety measure might not be the beginning of such a tradition though.

I will be talking about men's gymastics a lot in the coming months. This is the first time in my life I've had anything knowledgeable to say about sports and I am planning to make the most of the opportunity.
posted by not that girl at 12:38 PM on May 12, 2016 [18 favorites]


I don't think phunniemee was accusing the IOC of knowing that Zika would be a thing at the time.

Ah, sorry, I thought they had some weird xenophobic gripe revolving around this being predictable for Rio and not Chicago.
posted by Artw at 12:41 PM on May 12, 2016


World Championships take place at existing facilities, and I've wondered if Olympics could do something like that as well

I'm 100% behind (I've said it around here before) creating two permanent homes for the Olympics. One for summer, one for winter, since both in one climate-suitable place could be tricky.

International design competition to build the facilities, all countries shoulder an amount of the bill proportionate to, I dunno, how many athletes they've fielded in the past X Games. Every four years, a different country shoulders the responsibility of actually mounting the Games--opening and closing ceremonies, look and feel, media spearhead (although why not just create the Olympic Broadcasting network), medal design, etc. Host Country pays the security and upkeep costs from the end of the previous Games to the end of the one they host. Done and done. Security is easier, travel is simpler for everyone. It's also much better for the athletes themselves, because it wouldn't be difficult to put together a training scheme that allows everyone time to train at the actual facilities, and it means that Olympic records are normalized--everyone's competing on the same equipment at the same time of year at the same altitude. (Look at e.g. the differences in swimming from Sydney to Athens to Beijing--the design of the Beijing pool made everyone faster due to less turbulence in the water).

Declare said locations as extranational states (like the Vatican) and you're basically done. It won't happen, of course, because there are huge vested business interests in building these facilities from the ground up every four years.

I can dream.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 1:00 PM on May 12, 2016 [13 favorites]


Yeah, but you put the Olympics somewhere static and mere plebs like me don't get to go see them. I lived in Georgia in '96, and my family won a few of the ticket lotteries. We drove to Atlanta, camped cheaply at a campsite a few miles from the Olympic park, and got to go and experience it. We got to see people break records and win medals, it was extremely exciting. I would have loved to maybe have that chance again if the games had come to Chicago this year instead. I'm sure there are many many many people around the world who would love to maybe have the chance to see some of the games in person, too. If the Olympics stop moving around, unless you live in the permanent host location or are very wealthy, that's just not ever going to be a possibility.
posted by phunniemee at 1:10 PM on May 12, 2016 [3 favorites]


I'm 100% behind (I've said it around here before) creating two permanent homes for the Olympics. One for summer, one for winter, since both in one climate-suitable place could be tricky.

I will sign this petition.
posted by not that girl at 1:11 PM on May 12, 2016 [4 favorites]


Declare said locations as extranational states (like the Vatican) and you're basically done.

And a thousand years from now when the Ice Nation of Winter Olympiana and the Kingdom of Eternal Olympian Summer are the only remaining global superpowers what then? what then
posted by prize bull octorok at 1:13 PM on May 12, 2016 [18 favorites]


Olympiana has always been at war with Olympiana.
posted by phunniemee at 1:16 PM on May 12, 2016 [7 favorites]


feckless fecal fear mongering: "One for summer, one for winter, since both in one climate-suitable place could be tricky."

Lots of places in BC where this could happen. Especially considering the permanency of the facility would make upgrading a regional airport to international capable of landing large jets reasonable.

phunniemee: " If the Olympics stop moving around, unless you live in the permanent host location or are very wealthy, that's just not ever going to be a possibility."

You could take 1% of the money saved not building new temporary facilities and hold a global lottery for all inclusive trips to the Olympics and make it available to everyone not just those who happen to be close to the random location lottery.
posted by Mitheral at 1:18 PM on May 12, 2016 [12 favorites]


ah, but you put the Olympics somewhere static and mere plebs like me don't get to go see them.

Host country also controls disbursement of tickets (so for this Olympiad it would be e.g. Brazil, next time round... Japan? I think? etc), including lotteries--as Mitheral suggested all-inclusive--for the non-wealthy.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 1:21 PM on May 12, 2016


Yeah, but you put the Olympics somewhere static and mere plebs like me don't get to go see them. I lived in Georgia in '96, and my family won a few of the ticket lotteries.

I was going to say something like this about my concerns about the effects on local areas of building Olympic facilities. In Brazil, as in China, local families have been forcibly removed from their homes to make space for building Olympic facilities. I don't know whether this has happened in places like the US and Great Britain, but surely at least some facilities have been built in places where something else had been built before. When I was talking about the appeal of the spectacle, I was thinking about how people like me, watching on TV, enjoy it at the cost of locals whose lives and livelihoods have been disrupted.

You bring up another side of the question of who benefits and who pays the costs. As you say, a static Olympic facility would negatively affect people like you and me, who might have one chance in a lifetime to see such a thing if it comes within spitting distance of us. But who will, and who might, benefit from a static Olympic facility? Is it worth it to us to miss out on our chance of being spectators at a the world's most prestigious sporting event, if it means that people can stay in the homes and neighborhoods where they've lived for decades?

Update: according to this article 10,000 people were evicted, and homeless shelters razed, to make room for the Atlanta Olympics. I would love to see the world's best gymnasts in person—men's gymnastics is a small sport, and it doesn't take much to get attached to athletes from all over the world. I don't think I'd be comfortable with even a single family being evicted for me to have that privilege, especially since I think it's become clear that hosting the Olympics is not necessarily, or not often, or not usually, a public good for the host community.

I have not made peace with the economic reality that my middle-class American lifestyle depends on the poverty and suffering of others both in my own nation and elsewhere. I have, perhaps, accommodated myself to it , or capitulated to it, out of a sense that there's little I can do to change it.

And I'm not anti-sports. Especially now that I have a kid who basically back-flipped out of the womb. It's given me a window into how and why sports matter to the people who participate in them. I would never suggest that sports are an unnecessary or valueless part of society, or that people who are athletes or who follow sports are wasting their time. But I'm happy to be hearing conversations about whether the cost of this particular sporting event, which is disproportionately borne by those who can least pay it or benefit from its advantages, is worth it. And I can't help but think that, of all the things someone like me might give up for the good of others, a once-in-a-lifetime shot at Olympics spectatorship would be one of the easier ones.
posted by not that girl at 1:33 PM on May 12, 2016 [8 favorites]


And have all the peak events at 3am Australian time forever :(
posted by the agents of KAOS at 1:35 PM on May 12, 2016 [4 favorites]


I don't know whether this has happened in places like the US and Great Britain, but surely at least some facilities have been built in places where something else had been built before.

Vancouver 2010.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 1:36 PM on May 12, 2016


And even in Vancouver there were stories about low-cost apartments/hotels being emptied of their tenants and refurbished to accommodate Olympic tourists. There was also the usual preening over excessively expensive sports facilities and a road to Whistler for the ski events. It cost $7 billion, but "it was worth it".
posted by sneebler at 1:52 PM on May 12, 2016


Great. Yet another reason to stop the virulent spread of the Olympics. I've said it before and I'll say it again: ONE city (maybe 2, winter/summer) per continent, preferably already with Olympic facilities, and just rotate amongst them. Constructing a whole slew of new giant stadium complexes and swimming pools every 2 years is so obcenely wasteful and destructive it's physically nauseating.
posted by sexyrobot at 1:55 PM on May 12, 2016 [13 favorites]


Ha, to think the IOC would ever cancel the games is crazy, Of course they are going to say everything will be fine. Its also a bit of a shame that the athletes are all too indoctrinated by the media fanfare to realise that the extent of the risk. The chance of a massive boycott by athletes just seems far-fetched as well.

Since 1968, I imagine the IOC has been pretty hardcore at ensuring their athletes are as politically docile and ignorant as possible.
posted by mary8nne at 2:06 PM on May 12, 2016


Yup. There's no way these Games get cancelled or moved. Because: money money money. And so we face possibly creating a worldwide epidemic because of the almighty dollar.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 2:13 PM on May 12, 2016 [3 favorites]


Well, the more attention this gets, the more spectators will be dissuaded. So getting this into the media is still beneficial.
posted by Mitrovarr at 2:18 PM on May 12, 2016 [1 favorite]


I'd be astonished if more than a scant handful of potential spectators are dissuaded from attending. Humans suck at evaluating non-immediate risk.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 2:20 PM on May 12, 2016 [2 favorites]


I would be surprised if any pregnant women, or anyone in close association with one, would even vaguely consider going anymore.

Maybe some of the countries with stronger health systems should consider slapping quarantines on anyone coming back from the games. Or even boycotting the games nationally. There's a lot of money in the games, but it's not going to everyone.
posted by Mitrovarr at 2:29 PM on May 12, 2016 [1 favorite]


On the plus side, having moved to Vancouver well after the olympics, damn the skytrain is nice. I can get almost anywhere cheaply, easily, and often faster then driving, and as I understand it most of them were built for the olympics.

I wonder how much better things would be if the games were awarded on an 'As-is' basis. So no promises, just stuff already built. So if you claim you have a sweet transit system that can handle it? You have to already have one. So cities that want to try to get them have to give their citizens the infrastructure upgrades that are the claimed benefit, THEN they get judged on it.
posted by Canageek at 5:46 PM on May 12, 2016 [7 favorites]


I can't help but think that, of all the things someone like me might give up for the good of others, a once-in-a-lifetime shot at Olympics spectatorship would be one of the easier ones.

Maybe the reason you can contemplate that is because you're not a potential Olympic athlete. It's so hard to reach that pinnacle that anyone with the slightest level of doubt will probably have been weeded out long ago.
posted by Joe in Australia at 5:48 PM on May 12, 2016 [1 favorite]


Asked about Zika, the most senior member of the IOC, Dick Pound, mocked it as “a manufactured crisis” for anyone but pregnant women (manufactured by whom?).

O RLY, dude?

No matter what, this fucks up everything and everybody somehow. How quickly is some other country going to come up with the money to move the location? Even the ones who already have Olympic villages--are they 100% ready to go again by summer? Probably not. If they move the location (which they should), things will still be fucked for the timing for the athletes because ain't no way some other location will be ready fast enough.
posted by jenfullmoon at 5:59 PM on May 12, 2016



No matter what, this fucks up everything and everybody somehow. How quickly is some other country going to come up with the money to move the location? Even the ones who already have Olympic villages--are they 100% ready to go again by summer?


Back when Boston was thinking of inviting this shitshow here, I proposed that Boston should be the permanent backup location for the traveling festival. The Olympic village (some set of universities) is already there. The facilities area already there (minus stuff like kayak slalom, which can damn well skip an olympiade, and minus a lot of seating, but the IOC can go pound sand about it). It would not be that hard to do it on short notice. (The participating universities relocate their summer programs to campuses of non-participants. Done.)

It's still an option.
posted by ocschwar at 7:36 PM on May 12, 2016 [1 favorite]


I live in Florida. Last night I had car trouble and spent about 10 minutes outside crawling around under my car. I can't even count how many mosquito bites I have today. The whole time I was brushing them off, all I could think about was Zika and that an astonishing number of my friends are pregnant right now. I'd say the IOC is fucking monstrous but its an insult to monsters.
posted by gatorae at 7:52 PM on May 12, 2016 [2 favorites]


It's still an option.

Some men just want to watch the world burn.
posted by Behemoth at 8:32 PM on May 12, 2016 [1 favorite]


Folks reacting to the riots and flames comment upthread understand that the comment was about Brazilian politics, due to the coup-ish situation they are presently experiencing there, not about US elections, yes?
posted by eviemath at 1:05 PM on May 13, 2016


I can't help but think that, of all the things someone like me might give up for the good of others, a once-in-a-lifetime shot at Olympics spectatorship would be one of the easier ones.

Maybe the reason you can contemplate that is because you're not a potential Olympic athlete.


Reread that with the new emphasis.
posted by Etrigan at 1:19 PM on May 13, 2016


Interestingly, I was just watching feed from riots in Rio on Periscope, while trying to figure out how Periscope worked at what it is.
So, this is timely.

That said, the Rio Olympics has been a clusterfuck since it was awarded.
posted by Mezentian at 9:06 PM on May 13, 2016


Here's a CBC interview with Amir Attaran, author of the Harvard report, followed by discussions with an Olympic Studies prof and an economist who's written about the IOC. Too bad they never get around to discussing the issue of transmission of Zika to multiple new host populations.

The IOC is a mega-business operation, they have commitments to sponsors that are worth billions of dollars, they have a commitment to TV networks around the world, the largest one being NBC in the United States, they have spent $1.23 billion to broadcast the Games back to the United States.

posted by sneebler at 4:29 PM on May 14, 2016








Health experts on Friday urged the World Health Organization to consider whether the Rio de Janeiro Olympics should be postponed or moved because of the Zika outbreak. The 150 experts — including former White House science adviser Dr. Philip Rubin — issued an open letter to the U.N. health agency, calling for the games to be delayed or relocated "in the name of public health."

Some relevant comments about the long-term relationship between WHO and the IOC:
the "overly close" relationship "was last affirmed in 2010 at an event where the Director-General of WHO and president of the IOC signed a memorandum of understanding, which is secret because neither has disclosed it."

They also pointed to a group that WHO established to help cities not only with health advice, but to potentially help them bid for major events including the Olympics.

"WHO cannot credibly assess the public health risks of Zika and the Olympics when it sets neutrality aside,"
posted by sneebler at 7:06 PM on May 29, 2016


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