This summer is an exciting one. The few futile, exhausted months before the presidential elections, predictions for the warmest summer on record, combined with excited commentary about the Olympics have fed the insatiable appetites of starving media sources and politicians. Along with the buzz surrounding these spicy summer trends, health experts and international actors are additionally combating an outbreak of the dangerously contagious Zika virus.
Dr. Amir Attaran, a faculty member of both law and medicine at University of Ottawa, published five arguments in the Harvard Public Health Review for the 2016 Olympics being postponed or moving, due to Brazil’s “inconveniently unending” Zika outbreak. To put it shortly, Zika is more dangerous, and increasing its rate of spread by allowing travelers to visit Rio de Janeiro will complicate the process of developing effective technologies to beat the disease.
I find Dr. Attaran’s last reason for hosting the Olympics elsewhere most compelling: that allowing the games to be held in Rio violates the purpose of the Olympics, which is to promote “social responsibility and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles.” The same argument can be furthered for non-health related issues as well, such as Brazil’s current economic and political infrastructure.
Not only is Brazil suffering from the presence of Zika virus, but it also is struggling with its worst economic recession in recent history. According to BBC News, Brazil’s economy has experienced contractions for the fifth consecutive quarter (contractions occur when GDP has declined consecutively for at least two quarters). Brazil’s economy is expected to further contract by 4.3 percent, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Apparently GDP has fallen in all three sectors: agriculture, services and industry. Analysts suggest that Brazil’s chances of exiting recession are still a year away.
Brazil’s poor political culture has contributed to its instability. In the same article, BBC also references the removal of former President Rousseff as a source of uncertainty regarding the country’s health. She was impeached after being re-elected by a narrow margin, pressed with charges that she manipulated government accounts in order to win. Her impeachment has additionally deepened old political divisions. Supporters of Rousseff believe that her administration was responsible for successful poverty alleviation efforts and medicating inequality. Opponents “accuse her of mismanaging the economy.”
Zika’s recently established presence doesn’t help the case for allowing the Olympics to be hosted in Brazil. Dr. Attaran states that risking an increase in Zika’s spread would endanger the developments researchers have made in defeating the virus. Accelerating the rate at which Zika spreads will make it difficult for doctors and health professionals to keep up with the increase in infections and potential mutations of the disease.
Reporter Amy Goodman recently interviewed sports editor Dave Zirin and political science professor and Fulbright scholar Jules Boykoff about whether Brazil should host the Olympics as planned. Zirin mentioned that, after a visit to Brazil, people are excited to host the games, believing that the Olympics will highlight Brazil’s economic and political troubles. Professor Boykoff discussed the ramifications of the Olympics on the nation’s security. According to an illuminating report from Amnesty International, one in five homicides is conducted by security officials that patrol the Olympics. Boykoff reports that 85,000 security officials — twice the number that were stationed in London — will occupy Brazil, and that the lives of the young and colored are in danger under these conditions.
Now experts in all fields can use Zika to protest — or promote — Brazil’s hosting of the Olympic games. Brazil’s physical health, political culture and economic crisis might be highlighted globally as a result of the games, or the situations in all aspects might only worsen. Or perhaps both.
