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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsDoctors warn Olympics in Brazil could spark "global health disaster"
Since the Zika virus was first identified in Brazil in May 2015, the disease's spread through Latin America has been declared a health emergency by the World Health Organisation and the number of suspected cases in Rio is the highest of any state in the country.
The continued presence of the virus ahead of the summer Olympics has caused athletes and health specialists to question the risks involved in allowing the Games to go ahead with hundreds of thousands of spectators travelling to the city.
Writing in the Harvard Public Health Review, Dr Amir Attaran said the Games could speed up the spread of the virus, and suggested the Games could be hosted by another city in Brazil where the illness is less of a threat.
He said: “While Brazil's Zika inevitably will spread globally, given enough time, viruses always do - it helps nobody to speed that up.
"In particular, it cannot possibly help when an estimated 500,000 foreign tourists flock into Rio for the Games, potentially becoming infected, and returning to their homes where both local Aedes mosquitoes and sexual transmission can establish new outbreaks.
“All it takes is one infected traveller, a few viral introductions of that kind, in a few countries, or maybe continents, would make a full-blown global health disaster.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/rio-olympics-2016-zika-virus-global-health-disaster-a7024146.html
The virus isn't the only issue. Many have grown concern for a number of reasons. Right now the government is in the middle of an impeachment debate and a major corruption scandal. The economy has gone into decline. And there has been a sudden uptick in violent crime. Some athletes have publicly voiced concerns about going.
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840high
(17,196 posts)
ReRe
(10,597 posts)... but they aren't even done with construction. I remember hearing a couple months ago about the collapse of one of the sites, I think it was the off-road biking sport (beg forgiveness on remembering the spor'ts proper name.) Anyway, the venue collapsed and I think people were even hurt or killed.
Yeah, the world is going to go to Hell in a hand basket this summer. Knock-down drag-out political conventions up here and Olympics fail down there. Wag the dog.
OnyxCollie
(9,958 posts)News of the Olympic Movement: the legacy project kills
http://harryshearer.com/le-shows/april-24-2016/#sthash.qCUbOy1w.dpuf
ReRe
(10,597 posts)... I can't remember where I heard or read the news of that collapse. Wasn't Le Show, though. Thanks for the link. Love Robert Shearer & his "Le Show" on NPR.
OnyxCollie
(9,958 posts)One of the (former) voices from The Simpsons.
Richard Sher was the creator and host of Says You!
ReRe
(10,597 posts)... and said Robert. (I think my mind got him mixed up with Robert Scheer, the journalist.)
OnyxCollie
(9,958 posts)Truthdig is an excellent site.
SheilaT
(23,156 posts)that we don't need to be looking at the obvious candidates for some horrible global disease -- everyone assumes some influenza will do us all in -- but we need to be understanding that something terrible could spring up suddenly (Zika, anyone?) from where we least expect it.
Actually, we're now sufficiently aware of Zika that, as awful as it is, won't be the devastating horror that we're all sort of expecting. When it happens, it will happen so suddenly, so much out of nowhere, that it really will catch us all by surprise. We won't have months of anticipation, as we currently have with Zika, but the world-wide pandemic will happen far more quickly.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying Zika isn't a terrible disease. It really is. I cannot imagine what it would be like to be pregnant and learn I've gotten that virus, and now my baby will be irrevocably damaged. I will not second-guess any woman's decision to have or to not have that baby. But still, as dreadful as Zika is, it's only going to affect a relatively small proportion of the population.
We need to be thinking ahead about some highly infectious disease that strikes a very large percentage, which I'm arbitrarily setting at at least 30%, and is both unavoidable and incurable. What then? How large a percentage of the population could die or be irretrievably damaged, as in Zika, without tearing down the economy or the entire social structure.
In 14th century Europe anywhere from a third to a half of the population died (and the precise percentages did vary a great deal. In some places entire villages were entirely depopulated, and as late as the reign of Henry VIII of England, who died in 1547, there were towns that had still not recovered. On the Continent, parts of France were not brought back under cultivation until the 19th century), and you'd think the number would have bounced back quickly. Oddly enough, if you look at world population growth, the Black Death of the 14th century is barely a blip. Scary.
Dorian Gray
(13,496 posts)promise to be a shitshow this summer.
Katashi_itto
(10,175 posts)Money talks.
