Wednesday, May 11, 2016

"Rio Olympics could spark 'full blown global health disaster', say Harvard scientists"

"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.”

10 comments:

edutcher said...

Shoulda had 'em outside Troop's ladies' shop.

That's healthy enough.

ndspinelli said...

Rio beat out Chicago. Obama was pissed. The Olympics are corruption personified and all those Chicago pols thought they had bought the right people.

Methadras said...

Rio's Olympics are going to be a two week train wreck. The criminals in that shit hole are salivating right now.

chickelit said...

Events leading to the Games' cancellation could still intercede. If pundits and highly paid rice bowl defenders are to be believed, Donald Trump's hostile takeover of America is going to precipitate world war sooner rather than later. The 1940 Olympics (Tokyo) were cancelled as were the 1944 games.

Jim in St Louis said...

I’ve heard too many phony disaster stories from scientists. Global Warming, Killer Bees, ebola, the honey bees extinction, silent spring, peak oil, and so on.

I wish Rio luck, but the Oly is seeming more and more like the Worlds Fairs- too big and I don’t think the last couple have actually made money for the host nations.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Brazil has removed the president via impeachment. So far reports say the streets are relatively calm.

Michael Haz said...

Hey, no worries. No doubt the ace Brazilian law enforcement agencies, those bastions of uncorruptibility, have a keen eye on any and all potential terrorists who might shoot or kaboom tourists and athletes.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Yea, When you factor in terror Zika political instability and corruption, Brazil is about the worst place to hold the Olympics right now.

Has anybody asked Trumps opinion?

Methadras said...

Any host country that ends up spending billions on the Olympics will never see that money returned. Ever. Same with SuperBowls. Every host city that I know of in recent memory has spent more money to host it than make a profit from it, but then again, it's about optics not making a profit, but then no one gives two shits about who won anything the year before. It's always the march to the next train wreck.

ampersand said...

It's time to put the Olympics in one venue forever. Give it to Athens, they can use the money, maybe they can make enough to leave the Euro Zone. Pick a Swiss place for the Winter Olympics.
Montreal finally paid off their Olympic debts a few years back. They had the games in 1976.