# Public health expert advocates that the Rio Olympics be cancelled due to Zika virus **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 14, 2016, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-health-expert-advocates-that-the-rio-olympics-be-cancelled-due-to-zika-virus/754737 "2016-05-14T00:54:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2016, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-health-expert-advocates-that-the-rio-olympics-be-cancelled-due-to-zika-virus/754737/41 "2016-05-16T02:39:42Z")
> [@spamforbrains](#): > > Yeah, I’ve looked at the stats and so forth and I just can’t really bring myself to panic. In comparison to the yellow fever epidemic going on in Angola right now and the recent Ebola epidemic it just seems kind of a non-event. How many pregnant women were planning on traveling to the Olympics anyway? Nobody’s panicking. Not even the people who think it’s dumb to stage a massive tourist event in the middle of a Public Health Emergency. ---
**Author:** ![spamforbrains](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@spamforbrains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spamforbrains)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-health-expert-advocates-that-the-rio-olympics-be-cancelled-due-to-zika-virus/754737/42 "2016-05-17T03:18:47Z")
> [@](#): > > I vaguely recall reading about one of them winning a medal in IIRC track & field; she wasn’t showing yet and her doctor said it was OK to compete as long as she didn’t get overheated. Women can also participate in sports like archery at any stage of pregnancy, although travel would be an issue in the last few weeks. ? Being pregnant doesn’t mean you’re sick ?. Women can and do continue to live life just like usual while pregnant. The idea that a pregnant woman ‘needs to take it easy’ was debunked years ago. It’s not like your uterus just falls out when you run or pick heavy objects up. I didn’t mean the competitors. I meant the people coming to watch the events. I can’t believe that all that many pregnant women are/were planning to come watch. Of course they should stay home now, but that won’t affect it much. They can hand out complimentary packets of condoms to all of the male attendees. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-health-expert-advocates-that-the-rio-olympics-be-cancelled-due-to-zika-virus/754737/43 "2016-05-17T03:34:55Z")
> [@spamforbrains](#): > > I can’t believe that all that many pregnant women are/were planning to come watch. Of course they should stay home now, but that won’t affect it much. I’m still not grokking. Why \*wouldn’t _women who are pregnant plan on attending the Olympics? It’s kind of a big deal, and it only happens every few years, and if this is one of the years you can afford to go, why wouldn’t you go even if you got pregnant?_ Mathematically, almost 5% of the world’s female human population is pregnant at any time. There are lots of women who attend the Olympics, the majority of them at a fertile age. It would be extraordinary if some of them weren’t pregnant. \*I mean, I wouldn’t go NOW, whatwith the zika thing, but that seems to be arguing in circles… ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-health-expert-advocates-that-the-rio-olympics-be-cancelled-due-to-zika-virus/754737/44 "2016-05-17T04:08:14Z")
Calling off the Olympics would be a massive overreaction. Putting in health measures would be necessary, but calling off an entire event? ---
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-health-expert-advocates-that-the-rio-olympics-be-cancelled-due-to-zika-virus/754737/45 "2016-05-17T04:48:19Z")
What sort of health measures are you proposing to stop a sexually transmitted virus that causes Guillon Barre and microencephally? Keep in mind that, per the OP article - current efforts at stopping mosquito transmission are failing miserably. > [@OP article](#): > > But here’s the bigger problem: in Rio this year, insect-transmitted disease is up 600 percent over the same period last year. Why did it go up 600 percent when there are mosquito control efforts? That proves the efforts aren’t working as well as one would have liked. And even if the mosquito-borne diseases do go down over winter, they’re coming down from a level that’s six times higher than normal. Here’s another quote, from Amir Attaran’s article in the Harvard Public Health Review, with citations, explaining the situation in more detail. [http://harvardpublichealthreview.org/off-the-podium-why-rios-2016-olympic-games-must-not-proceed](http://harvardpublichealthreview.org/off-the-podium-why-rios-2016-olympic-games-must-not-proceed) > [@Harvard Public Health Review](#): > > Many have suggested that Zika will follow the pattern of other mosquito-borne diseases and decline during Rio’s winter months of July to September. While that is probably true, nobody actually knows because Rio has never experienced a winter with Zika before. If one assumes, reasonably, that Zika will behave like dengue fever, because they are caused by related viruses and transmitted by the same Aedes aegypti mosquito, then Zika transmission will ebb but not vanish in Rio’s winter, just as dengue did in winters past. > > However, nobody knows how deep winter’s ebb will be, especially this year, because Rio is undergoing a surprising and unexplained disease surge: in Rio de Janeiro city, dengue cases in the first quarter of 2016 are a shocking six fold higher than a year ago (8,133 cases, compared to 1,285 cases).[6] [7] That vertiginous rise is very worrisome, because it roughly coincides with the biggest military mobilization in Brazil’s history, aimed at intensifying mosquito-killing efforts.[8] It would appear that those impressive efforts did not work as well as hoped in Rio, and with the starting baseline of Aedes-borne disease so much higher this year than last, it is far from guaranteed that the coming winter’s ebb will make a “safe environment” for the Games. Quarantining a country the size of Brazil would be an overreaction. Cancelling or postponing the Olympics - an entirely unnecessary entertainment and tourist event - is not. ---
**Author:** ![spamforbrains](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@spamforbrains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spamforbrains)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-health-expert-advocates-that-the-rio-olympics-be-cancelled-due-to-zika-virus/754737/46 "2016-05-17T04:54:56Z")
> [@](#): > > I’m still not grokking. massive over-reaction. Are people dropping dead? No. Does every single pregnant woman exposed produce a defective child? No. In fact, birth defects in response to this virus are rare, and if a woman knows she was exposed she can choose to abort. Except of course not in countries controlled by religious fruitcakes. It’s a stupid fuss about nothing. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 9:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-health-expert-advocates-that-the-rio-olympics-be-cancelled-due-to-zika-virus/754737/47 "2016-05-17T09:14:20Z")
> [@spamforbrains](#): > > massive over-reaction. Are people dropping dead? No. Does every single pregnant woman exposed produce a defective child? No. In fact, birth defects in response to this virus are rare, and if a woman knows she was exposed she can choose to abort. Except of course not in countries controlled by religious fruitcakes. > > It’s a stupid fuss about nothing. No, no…I’m not grokking why you think pregnant women don’t go to the Olympics. And if your rubric for public health is that “every single” case of exposure results in an adverse event, you’ve got a very different rubric than most of the public, and certainly than public health officials. Thalidomide doesn’t cause deformities in every single case either, but the world pretty unanimously decided it was a bad idea to give it to pregnant women. Although, all that being said, my concerns are less, not none, but less, about pregnant women than about the massive amount of paid sex work that happens during the Olympics, and men bring zika home to areas where it doesn’t currently exist and spreading it there. I know the failure rate of condoms for preventing pregnancy; they can’t be any more effective at preventing zika transmission. But it was your oddly confident assertion that pregnant women don’t go to the Olympics that got my attention enough to bother posting. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 10:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-health-expert-advocates-that-the-rio-olympics-be-cancelled-due-to-zika-virus/754737/48 "2016-05-17T10:22:07Z")
> [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](#): > > So tell us what you were going here for other than “faggots.” [Here are some other options](http://www.onelook.com/?w=f%3F%3F%3F%3Fts&ls=a). List includes “fembots”, “ferrets”, “faucets”, “fewmets”, “foxnuts” and “fylfots” (and indeed “fuckits”). ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 10:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-health-expert-advocates-that-the-rio-olympics-be-cancelled-due-to-zika-virus/754737/49 "2016-05-17T10:27:43Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > [Here are some other options](http://www.onelook.com/?w=f%3F%3F%3F%3Fts&ls=a). List includes “fembots”, “ferrets”, “faucets”, “fewmets”, “foxnuts” and “fylfots” (and indeed “fuckits”). You left out “Foxnews”. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-health-expert-advocates-that-the-rio-olympics-be-cancelled-due-to-zika-virus/754737/50 "2016-05-17T10:42:16Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > No, no…I’m not grokking why you think pregnant women don’t go to the Olympics. The part I don’t understand is why athletes don’t count. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-health-expert-advocates-that-the-rio-olympics-be-cancelled-due-to-zika-virus/754737/51 "2016-05-17T12:37:09Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > The part I don’t understand is why athletes don’t count. That too. I’d be prepared to accept a chain of thought that goes, these women have been training for this for years, they’re probably using contraception to avoid derailing their athletic careers with a poorly timed pregnancy, and besides that many of them have extremely low body fat, suppressing ovulation, and therefore very few Olympic athletes are pregnant during the games…making the few isolated cases we know of all or most of the women who have competed while pregnant. But even if few in number, I don’t know why they shouldn’t “count”. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2016, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-health-expert-advocates-that-the-rio-olympics-be-cancelled-due-to-zika-virus/754737/52 "2016-05-19T01:32:28Z")
Okay, suppose few if any pregnant females travel from any non-Brazil place to Brazil for the Olympics – both participants and spectators. But how many foreign (non-Brazilian) non-pregnant persons will travel to Brazil and then be ex-non-pregnant when they return home? ---
**Author:** ![spamforbrains](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@spamforbrains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spamforbrains)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2016, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-health-expert-advocates-that-the-rio-olympics-be-cancelled-due-to-zika-virus/754737/53 "2016-05-19T01:46:50Z")
> [@](#): > > But how many foreign (non-Brazilian) non-pregnant persons will travel to Brazil and then be ex-non-pregnant when they return home? Hopefully none if they listened to the warnings and took lots of precautions. ---
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2016, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-health-expert-advocates-that-the-rio-olympics-be-cancelled-due-to-zika-virus/754737/54 "2016-05-19T03:07:11Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > You left out “Foxnews”. That would have to be “Foxnewts”, but that sort of works. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2016, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-health-expert-advocates-that-the-rio-olympics-be-cancelled-due-to-zika-virus/754737/55 "2016-05-19T03:25:06Z")
> [@spamforbrains](#): > > Hopefully none if they listened to the warnings and took lots of precautions. Yes, hopefully none. But not probably. More likely, lots of people will, one way or another, carry La Zika home with them to the four (or is it seven?) corners of the world. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-health-expert-advocates-that-the-rio-olympics-be-cancelled-due-to-zika-virus/754737.md?page=2)