Concerns for global spread of Zika mean Rio de Janeiro Olympics must not proceed • Hacker News Board

Re: Concerns for global spread of Zika mean Rio de Janeiro Olympics must not proceed

#161

Post by PeterisP » Wed, May 11, 2016, 5:27 PM UTC

VLM wrote: post #116

soneca wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually RJ does have an influx of visitors from nearly every country on earth. source (see page 97): http://www.dadosefatos.turismo.gov.br/export/sites/default/d...

So sending an even larger influx into an outbreak is good... why exactly? Its like arguing that some subset of people drive drunk right now, therefore it would be a great idea if more people would drive drunk this summer.

Well, it's a matter of cost vs benefit - while it may be valuable to take some costly, unpopular measures if that would have a meaningful change in spread of Zika, I'm not convinced if it's worth doing such things only to achieve, say, a 8% reduction (some of estimates here on impact of Olympics to tourist traffic) in risk of spreading the disease.

Re: Concerns for global spread of Zika mean Rio de Janeiro Olympics must not proceed

#162

Post by ramon » Wed, May 11, 2016, 5:30 PM UTC

detaro wrote: post #124

ramon wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a statement from someone that doesn't know Zika really, Zika the person feels really sick and feels their joints hurt a lot, is not like this is something that can go by without noticing! This is a really a statement from someone that doesn't understand what's Zika, people that don't understand what it's and what are the symptoms.

Source? The WHO information about it doesn't sounds like it has to feel all that bad http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/zika/en/ People with Zika virus disease can have symptoms that can include mild fever, skin rash, conjunctivitis, muscle and joint pain, malaise or headache. […] Treatment Zika virus disease is usually relatively mild and requires no specific treatment. People sick with Zika virus should get…

Just replying to one for all of the above: Zika symptoms has nothing to do with Dengue, it's really awful, the person cannot even walk right, the person stays bad in bed then they get better slowly, it's a lot different from Dengue, but also depends because there's a type 3 of Dengue which is almost the same as Zika.

Re: Concerns for global spread of Zika mean Rio de Janeiro Olympics must not proceed

#163

Post by Tycho » Wed, May 11, 2016, 5:30 PM UTC

maxerickson wrote: post #144

Tycho wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is this link actually confirmed yet? from what I heard, other nations which Zika has spread to have not seen an increase in the rate of microcephaly.

(I was curious what the status was so searched) The CDC has weighed in: http://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2016/s0413-zika-microcepha...

Thanks. will read

Seems to still be doubt though ... https://twitter.com/yaneerbaryam/status/728035459574710272

Re: Concerns for global spread of Zika mean Rio de Janeiro Olympics must not proceed

#164

Post by PeterisP » Wed, May 11, 2016, 5:32 PM UTC

mbreese wrote: post #21

bhouston wrote: post #3

I was wondering about whether this would happen. I am not enough of an expert to make a call on this either way of course, but if experts decided this was the right call would it even be possible to cancel/reschedule the Olympics? Imagine the financial impact on Rio.

Imagine the potential global financial impact of all of the visitors (and athletes) contracting Zika and bring that home with them to spread. Tough call...

As the number of all the visitors (and athletes) of Olympics is far smaller than the number of "normal people" currently traveling to those areas, and we've yet to see any Zika cases outside of Brazil, then this means that it's quite likely that the actual impact of that will be zero.

Yes, it's likely that someone of them will contract Zika and bring that home with them to spread - but it's more likely that it will not happen, and the effect is dwarfed by the chances that the spread will be caused by the ordinary flow of people, and cancelling the Olympics will have no effect on that.

Re: Concerns for global spread of Zika mean Rio de Janeiro Olympics must not proceed

#165

Post by tluyben2 » Wed, May 11, 2016, 5:34 PM UTC

toyg wrote: post #148

tluyben2 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shanghai feels incredibly safe and i've walked around in a lot of places where my colleagues thought it was dodgy (it wasn't; just poorer). I have not one time felt unsafe in Shanghai and I go there a lot. That's quite different from say, Fort Lauderdale, which was the first time in many years I really felt threatened when we stupidly went to a very dodgy gas station. Actually that was second time in that same busine…

> two crackheads got in the lift with us, pretended not to know eachother and followed us to our room. Wow, what did you do? Keep walking? back in circle? If they get to your room it's game over...

I was with my wife; we looked at eachother and ran to your room as soon as the elevator opened (they were much slower); called the desk and looked through the peephole. They didn't see which room we went in (it was one of those huge Disney things with many hallways) and saw them walk by. We didn't see them after that but it was really scary; I have seen flaky people before but these were completely out of place. And definitely out to do something with the 'rich tourists'. Then again; you never are sure; maybe they wouldn't have done anything and it was all a coincidence but we both felt the same and the fact they had rotten teeth, bad gums, holes in their faces and yet pretended to not know eachother ('what floor are you?' ; both clicked another floor than ours and yet walked out with us which was when we bolted).

Re: Concerns for global spread of Zika mean Rio de Janeiro Olympics must not proceed

#166

Post by marcosdumay » Wed, May 11, 2016, 5:35 PM UTC

SilasX wrote: post #159

untog wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's like arguing that some people get into car accidents, so more people driving is a bad idea.

Devil's advocate: I think the argument is that the damage of the disease is disproportional to the people exposed, because the increased pairs of interactions are what can make it spread fast. So doubling the number of people congregated in Rio won't just double the danger, but quadruple it. If car accidents obeyed a similar dynamic -- where they increase (much) more than proportionally to the number of vehicle-miles…

Aren't those pairs composed of a foreigner and a contaminated native? One of those populations is staying constant.

Re: Concerns for global spread of Zika mean Rio de Janeiro Olympics must not proceed

#167

Post by kamaal » Wed, May 11, 2016, 5:37 PM UTC

soneca wrote: post #147

elif wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those numbers aren't particularly compelling, especially for the countries the author listed as not having the resources to deal with an outbreak: Nigeria: 265 India: 4,522 Indonesia: 0

Considering the number of olympic athletes from these countries, what evidence there is that these numbers will increase?

As an Indian I can tell you even a few infected people can come into the country and cause an outbreak here.

Its not like in US, the sewage infrastructure in India is very bad. There are open air sewage drains, mosquito infestation is every day life and in cities people live in very densely crowded homes. All of this contributes to a rapid spread in case of a outbreak.

In fact dengue outbreaks are common in India every summer, or a few months.

Re: Concerns for global spread of Zika mean Rio de Janeiro Olympics must not proceed

#168

Post by maxerickson » Wed, May 11, 2016, 5:38 PM UTC

Tycho wrote: post #163

maxerickson wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(I was curious what the status was so searched) The CDC has weighed in: http://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2016/s0413-zika-microcepha...

Thanks. will read Seems to still be doubt though ... https://twitter.com/yaneerbaryam/status/728035459574710272

Just to clarify, the parenthetical that I had searched was meant to point to my not being especially informed, not a complaint about you asking or anything like that.

Re: Concerns for global spread of Zika mean Rio de Janeiro Olympics must not proceed

#169

Post by unclebucknasty » Wed, May 11, 2016, 5:40 PM UTC

ChicagoBoy11 wrote: post #101

maxerickson wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would expect the differences you mention to result in a higher delta for Rio, they would contribute to a lower base rate of travel making the event travel relatively larger.

When I wrote my original comment I certainly had a model that the base rate of travel was pretty comparable to LDN, but I looked at actual figures from a few years ago and saw that it is in fact 5x smaller. Nevertheless, the 500,000 figure cited would represent a ~25% bump in the number of visitors (if we use 2012 figures). If you consider the area in Brazil most affected by Zika (which would include São Paulo), then…

>You then also have to realize that a lot of those visitors displaced people who did not travel to Rio because of the olympics

If, as seems to be the case, you're looking at the anticipated percent increase in travel, then you've already included this displacement.

Re: Concerns for global spread of Zika mean Rio de Janeiro Olympics must not proceed

#170

Post by marcosdumay » Wed, May 11, 2016, 5:41 PM UTC

ChicagoBoy11 wrote: post #78

komali2 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5,677,000 tourists to Brazil in 2012. So 500,000 is an 8% increase, correct?

Well you have to be fair that that is taking ALL of Brazil into account, and some regions are unaffected by this virus -- but the largest builk of it (I think around 80%) are the cities of São Paulo and Rio, which are affected by the virus.

> the largest builk of it (I think around 80%) are the cities of São Paulo and Rio

That's only slightly more than the share of the population their region concentrates.

Yes, there are places where the disease wasn't identified yet. (Is it because of lack of cases? Who knows?) But those are mostly empty places insulated by bad transportation networks.