Covid casts cloud on Olympic festivities as athletes consider vaccinations

The Olympics, an ancient tradition that now alternates between summer and winter sporting events every two years, somehow managed to come to completion in Tokyo despite a global pandemic. The summer games were previously scheduled to take place during 2020, but due to the Coronavirus, they were postponed for the first time in nearly 80 years. With Covid cases at an all-time low since the beginning of the pandemic, the Olympic committee decided to host the Olympics for 2021, despite CDC officials strongly advising against it. This brought up the big question which has sparked controversy around the world: should this year’s Olympic athletes need to be vaccinated for Covid? 

Many people agree that the vaccines,made by Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, are for the better. 

“The safety of people’s lives is way more important than some sporting event; even though it’s really big and popular, lives are still way more important,” said one student. 

Although many Americans don’t share similar views, they were eager to experience live sports after roughly a year of quarantine.  Controversy rose when Kara Eaker, a member of the United States women’s gymnastics team tested positive, despite being fully vaccinated. Despite testing positive, Eaker remained asymptomatic, which implants more importance when considering if athletes should have vaccine requirements. 

 The CDC maintained their position that even if a vaccinated person were to contract Covid, their symptoms would be less severe relative to an unvaccinated person. Despite this generalized opinion, not everyone agreed.

Michael Andrews, a member of the United States Olympic swim team, claimed the shot was ‘unnecessary’, and that forcing vaccines upon American athletes harshly contradicted the free ideals on which this country was founded. 

Another Wildcat student took a passionate stance. 

“I think that they should get vaccinated, but I don’t think it should be required. It should be a choice, but the Olympic Committee should strongly encourage it,” they said. 

Other students disagreed. 

“Athletes should be devoting time to getting vaccinated because the safety of others is way more important than one or two days of training,” they said. 

The biggest dilemma was not the fact that athletes were testing positive for Covid prior to the Olympics, but that the 2021 Olympics would have caused more people to transmit the disease to others, increasing globalization of the virus. Due to the large number of athletes attending the OIympics, the idea of international transmission was concerning. 

 Although the Olympics ended August 8, many still debate the concern around vaccines.  As the 2022 Winter Olympics approach, Covid surges on, amounting to roughly 17 million new cases in the month of August alone. In addition, the Delta variant challenges the strength and efficacy of the vaccines.

By Julian Dedow

Oshkosh West Index Volume 118 Issue 1

October 6th, 2021