quote [ They sprang up like mushrooms atop almost every table, countertop and reasonably flat surface at the Olympic venues on Thursday afternoon: freshly unpacked bottles of hand sanitizer.
Lots of them.
By Thursday night, 42 more cases of norovirus were confirmed around the sites of the 2018 Winter Olympics, bringing the official tally of cases this week to 128. A mere 24 hours before the opening ceremony of the Games, the outbreak has threatened to undermine an otherwise watertight start to the global sports event. ]
RevealPYEONGCHANG, South Korea — They sprang up like mushrooms atop almost every table, countertop and reasonably flat surface at the Olympic venues on Thursday afternoon: freshly unpacked bottles of hand sanitizer.
Lots of them.
By Thursday night, 42 more cases of norovirus were confirmed around the sites of the 2018 Winter Olympics, bringing the official tally of cases this week to 128. A mere 24 hours before the opening ceremony of the Games, the outbreak has threatened to undermine an otherwise watertight start to the global sports event.
Determined not to let the quadrennial Games spiral into a widespread gastrointestinal nightmare, the organizers on Thursday seemed intent on carrying out a scorched-earth assault on every last germ in a 40-mile radius.
A troupe of young volunteers wound through the news media center in the afternoon, going from office to office to distribute hundreds of bottles of 62-percent ethanol hand sanitizer.
Anyone entering the cafeteria in the athletes’ village was stopped and required to take a dollop of the stuff there, too, before going anywhere near the buffet.
Competitors, Olympic staff members and journalists claimed not to be panicking, but the quietly growing sense of wariness here was palpable. Sneezes provoked sideways looks. Fist bumps replaced handshakes. People washed their hands over and over and over again.
“We’ve got every-germ killing thing that you can have, just in case, and we’ve got masks if it gets bad enough,” said Mitchell Whitmore, an American speed skater at his third Olympics.
Along with the newly omnipresent bottles of hand sanitizer, organizers have engaged in an informational campaign, with multilingual posters popping up all around the Olympic grounds.
At the media accommodations in Gangneung, the city hosting the indoor ice events, a new flier appeared bearing the heading “Cough Etiquette & Proper Hand Washing,” with a cartoon drawing of Soohorang, the smiley anthropomorphic white tiger mascot of the Games, in pain, covering his mouth with his striped left paw.
At a news conference on Wednesday night, Dr. Park Kisoo, a spokesman for the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, tried to temper the growing sense of worry here.
“You don’t need to go running out of the room if somebody sneezes,” Park said.
Park preached the importance of proactive personal hygiene. So along with wool caps and long underwear, bottles of hand sanitizer in varying shapes and sizes have become this year’s hottest Olympic accessory.
Never mind the studies showing they are largely ineffective in battling norovirus.
“The U.S.O.C. physician said that the antibacterial spray does not kill the norovirus,” said Matt Hamilton, an American curler competing in the men’s and mixed-doubles events, using the acronym for the United States Olympic Committee. “But what does do a good job is the Ivory soap. So he’s just like, ‘Soap up.’ ”
The buses that constitute the Olympics’ internal transportation network have been running smoothly on schedule. The facilities, and the hospitality of those staffing them, have won early raves.
But the pesky virus has threatened to derail some of the early good vibes.
More than a thousand people have been quarantined as organizers have rushed to halt the spread of the virus, which can cause bouts of vomiting, diarrhea and abdominal pain. The military was called in to provide additional support to the decimated staff.
So far 97 of the cases have been at Horeb Youth Centre, a dormitory that housed many local security staff members; 11 were in Pyeongchang; 20 were in Gangneung.
Kimani Griffin, an American speed skater and first-time Olympian, said these sorts of outbreaks were always a possibility at major international sporting events, where visitors from around the globe are gathered into tight quarters, day after day.
“Dining halls are usually a disaster; everyone’s touching everything,” Griffin said. “We’ve definitely gone through every precaution we can take while traveling: wiping things down with Clorox wipes, hand sanitizing, face masks, gloves, whatever we can do prevent ourselves from coming into contact with it.”
Whitmore, Griffin’s teammate, joked that the threat of illness would not throw him off his game.
“If Michael Jordan can play through the flu, I can race with the virus,” said Whitmore, an American speed skater. “If I break my leg, I’m still racing.”
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Full in extended.