Since 2020, there has been a surge in COVID-19 cases every summer, and this season is no exception. Waves of the coronavirus are once again sweeping many parts of the world, even affecting the 2024 Paris Olympics.
But the Olympics went ahead without interruption, despite at least 40 athletes testing positive for the virus, according to the World Health Organization. One of them, U.S. track and field star Noah Lyles, ran the men’s 200-meter race on August 8 despite testing positive for COVID-19 just two days earlier. After winning a bronze medal in the race, he sought medical attention and was removed from the track in a wheelchair. Lyles, who also has a history of asthma, said he experienced shortness of breath and chest pain after the race and that COVID-19 “definitely” affected his performance.
The laissez-faire approach to COVID-19 at the world’s largest and most prestigious sporting event is a far cry from the strict restrictions seen at the past few Olympics, and raises questions about how society should manage the virus in future, both at large public events and in everyday life.
“COVID-19 remains with us,” WHO epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove said at a press conference on August 6. Data from the WHO’s surveillance system across 84 countries shows that the rate of positive tests for SARS-CoV-2 has been rising in recent weeks.
The Paris 2024 Olympics will have no special COVID-19 rules, in contrast to the two previous Olympics held amid the pandemic. Mask wearing, testing and quarantine were mandatory at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics and the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. The Tokyo Olympics, postponed from 2020, had a total ban on public spectators, and Beijing also had limited spectators. In Paris, organizers are allowing athletes and teams to decide for themselves how to respond if a positive case occurs.
In other words, they appear to be treating COVID-19 the same as the flu or the common cold — an equivalence that has concerned some public health experts.
“COVID-19 remains very different from other seasonal or circulatory respiratory illnesses,” said Mark Cameron, associate professor of population and quantitative health sciences at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. “The evolving SARS-CoV-2 virus continues to produce variants that have public health implications outside the normal range.”
Specifically, new variants known as FLiRT have become dominant in recent months and are responsible for the current surge in infections. These variants are less likely to cause severe illness than previous strains, but they appear to be more contagious.
Brian Lavas, an epidemiologist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, says people should take COVID-19 more seriously than the flu or the common cold. “COVID-19 has a higher mortality rate,” he says. “It can be much more severe, and we have the problem of long COVID.” As of the end of June, about 5.3% of U.S. adults reported experiencing long COVID, or COVID symptoms that last for three months or more.
