Noah Lyles Criticized for Partying After COVID-19 Diagnosis

After Noah Lyles ran 200 meters while testing positive for COVID-19, he was revered and recognized as an emblem everything is mistaken with the management of the organizers of the Olympic Games in Paris the health of its athletes. Now, videos that appear to point out Lyles on the party have made him the goal of criticism.

While there isn’t any context for this video, the 200-meter final was Aug. 8. Lyles took a COVID test that got here back positive the morning of Aug. 6. If Lyles had COVID when he won the 100, that puts the timeline at about five days, which is the time frame the antiviral drug Paxlovid is taken, in accordance with Yale Medicine. designed to work in to cut back the likelihood of hospitalization of high-risk patients.

On Aug. 11, Lyles posted a photograph of his negative COVID-19 test result on his Twitter/X account with the caption, “Thank God I am COVID-19 free.”

His seemingly quick recovery prompted fans to mock Lyles, suggesting that despite the athlete fainting on the track after the 200-meter final, Lyles was using COVID-19 as an excuse for losing the race.

According to STAT, Lyles isolated himself in a hotel, took Paxlovid, and tried to rest and hydrate as much as possible. Lyles also has a pre-existing condition, asthma, that puts him in danger for serious complications. According to the outlet, Lyles, despite the health risks of COVID, never seriously considered canceling the event.

Arthur L. Caplan, Mitty Professor and chair of the Department of Medical Ethics at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine, described a positive COVID diagnosis as something athletes would happily overlook.

“It is absurd to leave the final decision to compete in the Olympics up to any one athlete. Everyone will say yes. They are focused on winning; most are young and feel immortal, and they don’t think much about others or the long-term impact of risky competition on their health,” Caplan wrote.

Caplan continued: “The purpose of having medical and health expertise at every event, including the Olympics, is to ensure the health, short-term and long-term, of athletes, staff, coaches and officials. While the world has grown tired of COVID-19, it has not grown tired of it hurting us. Anyone who has COVID-19 within the tight confines of the Olympics should disclose their infection, self-isolate, not compete as intimately as their sport requires, and not mix with others. Leaving the decision to compete up to each athlete negates the duty to protect all participants in the Games.”

According to , Lyles is certainly one of 20 Olympic athletes who’ve tested positive; it’s unclear how a lot of them can have the disease but are asymptomatic. If anything, the incontrovertible fact that Lyles is allegedly partying while potentially infected with COVID-19 reflects what number of are treating COVID-19, even Olympic judges.

According to experts, this decision is inconsistent with the science of the infection itself. Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, a St. Louis researcher and physician who works on long COVID, said: “I think it’s a step in the wrong direction. I think they’re really drawing the wrong conclusions from this pandemic… There’s no argument against maintaining the five-day isolation. I think it’s primarily politically motivated.”

As for Lyles’ decision to run despite being COVID-19 positive, Nathan Crumpton, who competed within the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and has long-term COVID-19 despite being vaccinated, criticized Lyles’ actions in an interview with CNN. “The fact that he risked infection and the health of his competitors by hugging them in tight quarters… it’s maddening,” he said. “It’s irresponsible and ignorant, I hope he didn’t infect anyone else.”

According to Dr. Isabell von Loga, a researcher at University Hospital Zurich and certainly one of Crumpton’s doctors, “there is a real risk that he has compromised his long-term health. But of course, time will tell and we sincerely hope that this will not happen. Covid is NOT just another respiratory disease. It affects all systems of the body,” von Loga told CNN.