Is COVID Officially Over? Olympians Have Tested Positive And Still Competed, As They Should
The times, they are a changin'.
For years, most athletic events have taken place under the shadow of a positive COVID test. Sports leagues, international competitions and individual organizations created obsessive policies about testing, masking and isolation. Those policies, which did little to nothing to keep events "safe," primarily kept athletes from competing based on test results, even if they had no symptoms.
Remember the Michael Jordan "flu game?" The safetyism era of COVID policies would have forced Jordan to issue a statement on his gratitude for COVID vaccines while missing the game.
But thankfully, it seems that embarrassing era may finally be coming to a close, with the clearest indication being the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.
A number of athletes have tested positive for COVID while in Paris; roughly 40 at last count. Most of them have kept right on competing in their scheduled events anyway. As they should.
One such example is swimmer Adam Peaty from Great Britain, who secured a silver medal then tested positive for COVID a few hours later. He returned to swim in his next event too.
Jul 27, 2024; Nanterre, France; Adam Peaty (Great Britain) in the men’s 100-meter breaststroke semifinal during the Paris 2024 Olympic Summer Games at Paris La Défense Arena. Mandatory Credit: Grace Hollars-USA TODAY Sports
Naturally, this has infuriated some of the same publications who have refused to move on from their COVID misconceptions.
Media Outlets Furious That Summer Olympics Has No COVID Protocols
Scientific American, for example, published an article decrying the lack of COVID protocols at the Olympics, where organizers have *gasp*, treated it like any other respiratory virus.
"The Paris Games also drop [sic] all previous COVID protocols," they wrote. "Instead approaching the disease like other respiratory illnesses such as the common cold or the flu: officials now allow athletes and teams to determine for themselves how to prevent or respond to infection."
That's exactly what should happen; COVID is like any other common respiratory illness, especially in 2024. There is no way to prevent transmission or infection. Healthy, elite athletes who test positive are overwhelmingly likely to have mild symptoms, if any. No one cared if the Olympics had a protocol for athletes getting a cold in 2016 or 2012, why should there be a protocol in 2024?
Keep in mind though, Scientific American is the same outlet that praised New Mexico for beating COVID with masks and "science," only to see New Mexico wind up with one of the worst COVID mortality rates in the United States soon afterwards.
Sure enough, they also reverted to the same tried and tested media technique: referring to "the experts" and their concerns as infallible, authoritative sources of unquestionable fact.
"…some experts fear a wider outbreak; in the absence of testing requirements, it’s possible many more participants could harbor the COVID-causing virus SARS-CoV-2," they write.
"'It makes sense to be more aware of [the virus] moving forward,' says Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease doctor at UCSF Health. ‘We still have a ways to go in the Olympics.’"
Ah yes, the same experts who said masks would stop COVID and the vaccines would prevent infection and transmission. Those are the experts whose opinions we should be listening to now. It doesn't matter to Scientific American or to the "experts" that there is nothing we can do to prevent COVID spread, that it causes similar symptoms to other respiratory viruses, and that elite athletes in peak physical condition are almost certainly at little to no risk. What matters is continuing the endless theater of COVID pseudoscience and appeals to authority.
Thankfully though, in the real world, the Olympics seem to indicate that their mindset is rapidly disappearing.