Though the Summer Games in Tokyo are expected to go on as scheduled, “it is a dynamically changing situation,” said Jonathan Finnoff, the new chief medical officer for Team U. S. A. Jonathan Finnoff became the chief medical officer of the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee in January, taking on a job that typically focuses on the sports-related injuries and risks of athletes who represent the country at international competitions.
Lately, though, his job has been primarily about the coronavirus and the Summer Olympics in Tokyo, where competition is scheduled to begin on July 22. Stakeholders in the Games — athletes, coaches, sponsors, fans who have bought tickets — want to know what to expect, what the risks are of athletic competition, even whether to avoid the customary postgame handshake with an opponent. Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee, said last week that plans were continuing for the Games to go on as scheduled, and for now Dr. Finnoff has offered largely common sense advice: Wash your hands often.
Avoid contact with someone exhibiting symptoms. Hand sanitizer and disinfectants can help. The chief medical officers for all of the national Olympic committees plan to meet in Monaco later this month. They will have plenty to discuss.
Dr. Finnoff has more than two decades of experience in treating sports injuries, and served as medical director for the Mayo Clinic Sports Medicine Center in Minneapolis, where he has been a team physician for the Minnesota Timberwolves and Lynx since 2014. In an interview Friday with The New York Times, Dr. Finnoff spoke about the effect of the coronavirus on sports events and other mass gatherings and said that the U.
S. O. P. C.
had no reason to believe the Olympics wouldn’t happen this summer in Tokyo but that things could change quickly. Get an informed guide to the global outbreak with our daily coronavirus
newsletter.
“It is a dynamically changing situation,” he said. “Two weeks ago there were no issues with travel to Italy, and now there are a significant number of cases in northern Italy.
Denise Rife scored 111 points in an Iowa high school game, was drafted by the Warriors in 1969 and appeared on “The Tonight Show.” She needs a second hip replac...
” This interview was condensed and edited for clarity: You are obviously getting plenty of questions about what will happen and what people should do in preparation for the Olympics or whether there will even be an Olympics. What do you tell them? We are in constant contact with local governments, state governments, national governments and governing bodies and the World Health Organization. The last pandemic was in 2009, and there have been pandemics before the Olympics.
We had H1N1 before Vancouver in 2010 and the issues with Zika before Rio. This is not new, but each situation is different. We are getting a lot of inquiries. There is no indication that the Games are not going to occur, but I tell them to listen to the appropriate recommendations in terms of safety.
What are those recommendations? Try not to touch your face. Wash your hands frequently. Stay three feet away from someone coughing.
If you have symptoms that include a fever, cough or fatigue, and if you have been in a high risk area, reach out to a local health authority. Check the Centers for Disease Control for travel recommendations. Athletes tend to be younger than the general population. The people who seem to be in the most danger from this virus are older and in compromised health.
Could there be a shift that makes younger, healthier people more vulnerable? The epidemiology won’t change. It probably will affect the older rather than the young population.
“It has affected enough people for us to see who is at risk.”
Sports are trying to adjust by doing things like banning traditional handshakes. Does that make a difference given all the contact people experience when they play sports? We have found it very unlikely that this is contagious when someone is asymptomatic. So if the people playing a sport are asymptomatic, then the likelihood of spreading the disease is extremely low.
Every night there are professional sports events that qualify as mass gatherings. Do those events, whether they are N. B. A.
games or road races, present a danger? The World Health Organization has issued guidelines for mass gatherings. They aren’t saying don’t have these events, but do so with precautions. There is no such thing as zero risk, and the risk is based on prevalence of disease in an area.
If you are in a place where there is a high number of people infected, then even if it’s a small gathering, the risk is higher. Studies that have been done in China indicate that the area where the greatest transmission has occurred is at home, because you’ve had close and frequent contact with someone who is infected. We have MERS, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, and yet we still have the large event known as the Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia. They try to mitigate the spread through education about social distancing, not shaking hands and avoiding touching the face.
Is an indoor mass event more dangerous than an outdoor one? Intuitively, you would say an outdoor event has more potential for social distancing and the air moving, so that might reduce the risk. Indoors, if you are in close quarters, you may be next to someone who is sick. But to my knowledge, there is not a specific study that describes the difference between the two with coronavirus.
What misconceptions exist about this virus? There is misinformation about when people are infectious. In flu, there is a period where you are contagious before you are symptomatic. With this, that does not appear to be the case.
Coronavirus appears to be contagious primarily when you are symptomatic. Is it safe to use equipment at a gym? In areas where there is significant contact with surfaces, particularly in an area with coronavirus, then if you are touching the surfaces you want to mitigate risk. If you are touching something other people have touched, don’t touch your face immediately after.
Use hand sanitizer that has 60 percent alcohol content. Wash your hands with soap and water for 20 seconds. Wipe down equipment at the gym. It’s always a good idea for healthy hygiene to wipe it down before and after use.
People talk about the Olympic Games as a petri dish and a perfect vehicle for spreading illness worldwide. Is that fair? If there was an unknown, emerging disease, and we were not prepared for it and not taking precautions, and you brought people from all over the world in close contact and not taking precautions, then I would agree that any mass gathering like that would have potential to spread disease. But the I.
OC. and the W. H. O.
and the local organizing committee are doing a great job working with the public health system to prepare not only athletes but staff and people coming to give them information.
The Day in (no) sports New Orleans Saints Coach Sean Payton shared his favorite plays on Twitter, alternative brackets are still getting busted and a Swedish so...
It is already difficult for the lowest events on the men’s and women’s tours, even in a good economy. Now, the upending of the sports calendar by the coronaviru...
