Cancel the Olympics? Shelve the biggest global gathering, a multibillion-dollar undertaking demanding enough planning and precision that Los Angeles is tabbed to host the Summer Games ... eight years from now?
Stop the most singular collection of humanity, so difficult to derail that it's happened just five times _ due to World War I and World War II? How do you course-correct a behemoth that brings together about 11,000 athletes, with another 4,400 to follow during the Paralympics, and the thousands upon thousands more who work, cover and cheer?
The knee-buckling reality of it: You probably don't.
At least that's what veteran International Olympic Committee member Dick Pound told The Associated Press when asked to outline options if Covid-19, commonly known as coronavirus, threatens the Tokyo Games scheduled to begin July 24.
The host sits about 1,500 miles from the Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicenter for the virus _ or roughly the distance from San Diego to St. Louis. Pound told the AP that movement or postponement likely would be logistically impossible. A decision would need to be made by late May if not sooner, he said.
Could a health scare bring down the Olympics?
"In and around that time, I'd say folks are going to have to ask: Is this under sufficient control that we can be confident about going to Tokyo or not?" Pound said.
It's stunning to consider.
The intersection of medals and medical hand-wringing could create a Rubik's Cube the likes of which the world has not seen in our lifetime, or any lifetime. The flights. The food. The hotels. The TV entanglements. Not to mention the athletes who sacrifice in the shadows in ways few can fathom for a shot on the biggest stage of all.
For some, this will be their only shot in one of 33 sports covering 339 events. To see those dreams evaporate is plot fodder for a sci-fi thriller.
"You can't just say, 'We'll do it in October,' " Pound told the AP.
The IOC faces a conflict-rich dilemma. The organization and the Olympic movement groups that feed from it desperately rely on the gargantuan payday TV rights deliver. What if they send hundreds of thousands there and it's unsafe, creating in essence the world's largest Petri dish?
Pound's advice for athletes: "Keep focused on your sport and be sure that the IOC is not going to send you into a pandemic situation."
Trust us, say the people with enough alarming incentive to err on the side of bank accounts.
Though the fatality rate of coronavirus hovers between 1 and 3% by most estimates, it already has claimed some 2,700 lives among 80,000 cases _ or enough cases to almost match the population of San Marcos.
The ripples do not end at health impacts. The Dow shed more than 1,000 points during its worst day in two years. Another giant slide a day later means the stock market index tumbled into the red for the year. Some are limiting travel to Italy. Switzerland and Spain recently reported initial cases. The Centers for Disease Control issued its strongest travel warning to dissuade non-essential travel to South Korea, the site of the 2018 Winter Olympics.
Consider the potential fallout of people from all over the globe cramming into the same place as a virus on the verge of being labeled a pandemic lurks.
I covered six Olympic Games, from the mountains of Sochi, Russia, to the pollution-stained skies of Beijing. The instinct to maintain and protect them looms large. You learn the stories of all that athletes endure, what they've overcome and how winning can change lives.
You also witness the close proximity it puts people from divergent backgrounds and locations daily, for weeks. The unpredictability and unease related to the virus, spreading in all directions, mixed with the unpredictability of all the dizzying factors at an Olympics, makes the pending decision enormous.
Pound said he expects the Games to go on, but the possibility they might not _ or should not _ remains. The IOC will be guided, Pound promised, by the World Health Organization.
Hard questions and difficult decisions await. Coronavirus has transformed cruise ship passengers into captives and shut off a city with 11 million residents from the rest of the world.
The Olympics are worth protecting. The question we've never faced before: At what cost?
