The Olympics condom story
Every two years, there’s a news story about how many condoms are being handed out at the Olympics. I last wrote about it four years ago, when Rio planned to give away 450,000 condoms in the Olympic Village, compared to a mere 150,000 in London, and 90,000 in Sydney (initially 70,000, but they ran out). The number was 110,000 in Pyeongyang, and the Guardian reports that it’s 160,000 for Tokyo.
It’s pretty clear that advertising for safe sex is a big part of these numbers. Which is a bit tricky this time around — the Tokyo Olympics has a serious problem with the risk of communicable disease, but it’s not one that condoms will fix. This year, according to the Guardian, the condoms are just intended as souvenirs, not as a way around social distancing rules.
Thomas Lumley (@tslumley) is Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Auckland. His research interests include semiparametric models, survey sampling, statistical computing, foundations of statistics, and whatever methodological problems his medical collaborators come up with. He also blogs at Biased and Inefficient See all posts by Thomas Lumley »