Could there be any more telling event of our shared loss from the pandemic than the 2020 Summer Olympics played out before no spectators in 2021?
That would be no in-person spectators.
That means most people can only watch the games on television, which if we didn’t know better would cast these Olympics as a surreal Hunger Games for a world starving for normalcy.
Surely, however, amid the new threats from the Delta variant, and through ongoing political unrest around the world, these athletes deserve their chance to compete after years of preparation.
Oh, that the Olympics were only about the athletes – and not also about nationalism, cheating and billions of dollars in advertising revenue.
But this is 2021 and after a year and a half of COVID-19, of racial and socio economic unrest, viewers may be tuning in for a respite from doomscrolling daily news.
Many of the athletes compete in obscure events; amateurs who have given much of their lives to preparing for the Games and will have a moment in the spotlight before returning to an everyday world with all its non-Olympian challenges.
Santa Cruz County viewers may be watching surfing and skateboarding and feel like these first-time-ever competitions feel right at home. Or celebrating the Bronze Medal won by former county resident, triathlete Katie Zaferes.
Or they’ll continue to follow the feats, and tribulations, of Simone Biles, considered the greatest gymnast ever, but whose withdrawal from the team gymnastic event this week because she said she wasn’t in the right mental place to continue took most of the attention off the silver medals the other three women won in the competition.
But for all the thrills and spills, we have to ask: Should these Games be happening at all? They were postponed last year and this year debate raged whether to cancel them again, especially since Japan has a low vaccination rate.
Although the number of people coming to Tokyo for the Olympics has been reduced by around two-thirds, more than 50,000 athletes, officials, reporters and others are coming to the Games, making it the largest international gathering since the pandemic began. Bringing people together from around the world has the potential to be yet another super spreader environment.
But whatever we might think of the decision, the Olympics are proceeding albeit in almost empty stadiums and without the global village that normally swirls around them. The silence and isolation is a reminder, as if we needed one, that the pandemic continues – and that getting more people vaccinated is the way to halt it.
But what we see are weird events like medal ceremonies where athletes are required to place their antiseptic-sprayed gold, silver and bronze trophies around their own necks – never mind that the risk of surface COVID-19 transmission is very low.
The do-it-yourself medal ceremony is just one of many strict measures imposed at these Games to keep COVID-19 under control, some of which now seem outdated because of a better understanding of the virus’ behavior and widespread vaccination among the tens of thousands of people in attendance.
Organizers, according to many health professionals are behaving as if these Games were being held in 2020 as originally planned. COVID-19, we now know, is primarily a respiratory virus, transmitted by airborne particles, which is why masks remain an effective strategy, and why vaccines, safe and highly effective, should be the ultimate test of whether events and gatherings can proceed.
According to scientists and medical professionals who have studied COVID-19 and its variants, the best way to prevent outbreaks at the Olympics is to be vigilant and strict, and mandate measures such as vaccines, masking, testing, social distancing and quarantines when necessary.
Yes, the organizers are requiring frequent testing and limiting the number of people at venues. Vaccination was not required to come to the Games – and athletes are flying in, sometimes after being in settings where virus transmission is highly possible, often from communities where case counts remain high and vaccination rates are low.
So we watch, with an awareness of the fraility of humans – and yet, how these athletes attempt to soar into achievements most of us cannot even imagine – and allow us the hope we are rising with them, above the plague.
