Norovirus SPREAD Quickly At 2018 Winter Olympics

As we previously reported, the norovirus is spreading quickly among security guards at the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. Determined not to let the Olympics spiral into a widespread gastrointestinal nightmare, organizers of the Games seemed intent on carrying out a scorched-earth assault on every last germ in a 40-mile radius.

According to the New York Times, 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.

Competitors, Olympic staff members, and journalists claimed not to be panicking, but the quietly growing sense of wariness in Pyeongchang 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.

But the norovirus is easily spread and difficult to contain.

The norovirus is an infection which causes the sudden and severe onset of diarrhea and vomiting; symptoms which begin within 12-48 of exposure and can be painful. The virus is highly contagious and commonly spread through food or water that is contaminated during preparation or contaminated surfaces. You can also be infected through close contact with an infected person. Most people will cover without treatment in three days, however, hospitalization can occur if victims are infants or elderly.

Organizers said this viral infection is particularly bad. Of the 1,200 guards removed from duty, 41 had suffered a sudden onset of vomiting and diarrhea on Sunday and all had been taken to a hospital. The outbreak comes just days before the opening of South Korea’s 2018 Winter Olympics on Thursday.-SHTFPlan

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.  “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. Plus, those measures are proving to be ineffective in the prevention of the spread of the norovirus anyway.

Since the virus is found in the vomit and feces of an infected person, it makes sense that protecting oneself from a sneeze won’t help much.

 

OUTBREAK ALERT: Military Deployed As Norovirus Strikes Winter Olympic Security Guards

South Korea, the home of the 2018 Winter Olympics, has deployed 900 military personnel after 1,200 security guards contracted the highly contagious norovirus. Although the guards were pulled from their duties at the Winter Olympic facilities in Pyeongchang, the virus is still spreading.

“The military personnel … will be responsible for security checks of the 20 venues as they take up jobs such as security searches, previously done by civilian safety personnel until the patients’ condition is normalized,” a statement from the Pyeongchang Olympics committee said.

The norovirus is an infection which causes the sudden and severe onset of diarrhea and vomiting; symptoms which begin within 12-48 of exposure and can be painful. The virus is highly contagious and commonly spread through food or water that is contaminated during preparation or contaminated surfaces. You can also be infected through close contact with an infected person. Most people will cover without treatment in three days, however, hospitalization can occur if victims are infants or elderly.

Organizers said this viral infection is particularly bad. Of the 1,200 guards removed from duty, 41 had suffered a sudden onset of vomiting and diarrhea on Sunday and all had been taken to a hospital. The outbreak comes just days before the opening of South Korea’s 2018 Winter Olympics on Thursday.The Korean Center for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) said in a statement Monday that the 41 security guards had been staying at the same building in Pyeongchang. “KCDC dispatched an immediate response team to the Pyeongchang site to check additional people for symptoms, check the origin of the exposure, take measures to control infection, and prevent spread,” the statement said.

It’s still not clear how the security guards become infected with the virus in the first place. Water and food at the accommodations sites are currently being tested. Meanwhile, the Winter Olympics committee said it would strengthen checks on sleeping quarters for staff working at the games to prevent further infections.

Where Private Security Outnumbers The Police

Private security guards have become a common sight across our society, whether they"re escorting cash in transit, patrolling shopping malls, conducting screening at airports or protecting VIPs. In many places, the guards dress like police officers and are equipped with firearms.

As Statista"s Niall McCarthy notes, private security is booming and the sector is worth approximately $180 billion, a number that"s expected to increase to $240 billion by 2020. That"s greater than the GDPs of 100 countries including Portugal, Romania and Hungary. An estimated 20 million workers are employed in the private security sector while its biggest company, G4S, has 585,000 employees and revenues of nearly $10 billion.

Research conducted by the Guardian has found that half of the planet"s population lives in countries where there are more private security workers than police officers.

You will find more statistics at Statista

India and South Africa have glaring disparities while in the U.S., there are over 1.1 million private security guards compared to 666,000 police officers.

Things are far more even in Germany, though private security still has a slight edge over the Polizei by a margin of 2,000.

When companies like Blackwater (now called Academi) flocked to Iraq more than a decade ago to fulfill lucrative contracts, the industry really started flourishing.

However, increasing levels of wealth and growing global inequality have proven the real driving forces behind its inexorable rise. The global pool of super rich individuals is bigger than ever, resulting in heavy demand for services like alarm monitoring and armored transport. That demand isn"t going to slacken anytime soon with the private security sector growing 6 percent every year.