About 30,000 people from scores of nations are spitting into tiny plastic vials at the Olympics in a daily routine
If you do the math for the two-week duration of the Olympics, that adds up to a half million saliva samples collected for athletes, who get tested daily, as well as other venues, in an extraordinary effort to curb the spread of COVID-19 infections. At about 1 milliliter per sample, that would be, well, a lot of spit.In contrast, such tests have long been hard to find for the general Japanese public.
These tests don’t require sticking a swab up one’s nose, another widespread method of testing for the coronavirus. Takanori Teshima, professor at Hokkaido University, who helped develop the tests used in Japan, including those at airports, says the constant and careful testing of Olympians means the risks lie mostly in the general public making the athletes sick, not the other way around.“As you know, not all people are going to listen and stay isolated. And so doing tests upon tests is the best way,” he said. “But this is possible only because it’s the Olympics.
So far, 23 athletes, as well as others working at the Games, including Japanese residents, such as security officials, have tested positive, totaling 220 people overall, as of Friday. But the rate for testing positive at the Olympics has still been relatively low, at 0.02% for July, because more than 340,000 tests have been carried out so far, according to the Tokyo organizers.
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