Summer Olympics should be called off -- now

The Washington Post

"Call the Olympics off. It’s time," says Sally Jenkins after IOC president Thomas Bach said Thursday that "cancelation is not on the agenda." "The Tokyo Games cannot possibly go forward without jeopardizing people all around the world, and every day that International Olympic Committee officials hesitate, they contribute to the crisis and the imminent collapse of medical systems," says Jenkins. "A hard shutdown is the responsible thing to do, and anything less is negligent, maybe even lethally so." Jenkins adds: "Bach and other officials continue to intone that it’s too early to cancel or postpone because everything might be fine by July. U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee chair Susanne Lyons said in a teleconference on Friday, 'We don’t have to make a decision. Our Games are not next week, or two weeks from now. They’re four months from now. And I think a lot may change in that time period.' Wrong. They do need to make a decision — and make it now. The entire world is behind on this disease, lagging. Have they not been listening to Anthony S. Fauci? We don’t have time. We don’t have time for the IOC’s hemming platitudes, and the USOPC’s vague blather. Do the basic math. Things are accelerating. Cases in New York are doubling overnight. There were 245,000 cases worldwide as of Friday, and while it took three months to count the first 100,000 infections, it took just 12 days to reach the 200,000 mark. Hong Kong has reported its single biggest jump in cases to date, apparently because people are still traveling. Get it? The disease is speeding up because we aren’t shutting down fast enough. We don’t have time for athletes to keep training, or meeting with coaches, risking infection or becoming asymptomatic spreaders." ALSO: The uncertainty of the Olympic games hangs over the TV industry.