Olympic athletes tested positive 3x less often

At the Olympic Games, about 78,000 people have descended on Tokyo. Journalists, officials, supervisors and about 12,000 athletes. 18% of those present were athletes. The Games have been intensively tested. A total of 458 positive tests were found during the Olympic Games. With equal distribution, 82 athletes (18%) should have been found positive. There were only 29 (6%), according to the official reporting. That is three times as little.

Now there are of course more elderly people (60+) among supervisors, journalists and officials than among athletes and we know that illness and mortality are more common in that group. This is considerably less among people under 40. (In the Netherlands, only 1% of Covid deaths are under 60.) At the same time, there are often ex-athletes and former champions among the coaches. Even then, the athletes tested 3x less positive.

Please note: it is not about becoming less seriously ill, fewer hospital admissions, less mortality. It is about the lack of a traceable infection with the antigen tests used. Thank God no PCR tests were used; It could just be that many more athletes would have been sent home. Of the 29 positives, two have had mild symptoms, the rest have not noticed anything.

These are antigen tests that check whether your body has produced specific antibodies against SARS-CoV2. No PCR tests were performed if the antigen test was negative. Then you could have seen how the presence of the virus relates to infection among the various athletes vs non-athletes. With a population of 78,000, a handy data collector could have extracted useful information from that. But unfortunately, we are in the field of medics.

What does this mean? Would the athletes have come into contact with the virus less? PCR tests could have shown that. In any case, no infectious reaction has been initiated with specific Covid antigens. As an informed layman, I see three possibilities:

• Athletes have come into contact with the virus less than their supervisors, journalists, officials and suppliers
• The virus is already tackled/removed from the athletes before it can cause anything of an infection
• Innate general immunity is much better able to fight the virus in a healthy body. No specific antibodies are produced.

Bullets two and three interlock: the early removal is the first line of defense of the immune system. Understandable and scientific explanation from the textbook of immunology: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7178865/

Research shows: exercise helps well, sports better

A Korean study of 10,000 Covid patients showed that exercise in combination with some (strength) sports to stimulate the muscles is an important pillar of protection against corona. You then walk less chance of infection, even less chance of getting sick from it and even less chance of dying from it.

• You halve the risk of severe Covid-19
• The chance of death is 25% compared to non-movers. That is a reduction of 75%.

Source: https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2021/07/21/bjsports-2021-104203

The recommended minimum is either 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise or 75 minutes of heavy-intensity exercise (exercise), or a combination of both, spread over the week. These activities should be performed for at least 10 minutes at a time.

Source: US Physical Activity Guidelines

The world is discovering that unhealthy people suffer more from illness than healthy people... It remains surprising that so little is being done about it by the government.

The research: https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2021/07/21/bjsports-2021-104203