Is there a price to pay for Team USA's unvaccinated athletes?

TOKYO — Organizers for the Tokyo Olympics created coronavirus prevention measures blind to participants’ vaccination status. Everyone has to wear masks and take tests, and good hygiene and distancing are encouraged.

So even as the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee has revealed that 103 athletes are unvaccinated, it hasn’t had an impact in the Olympic Village or in the requirements they have to meet.

Based on information from athletes’ history forms, 606 of the 709 American Olympians or alternates who responded – or 85% – are vaccinated, USPOC spokesperson Jon Mason told USA TODAY Sports on Monday.

(There are 613 U.S. athletes competing here, and so the 706 athletes represents alternates and replacements.)

“That concerns me a little bit, but it’s a mixture of ... you’re allowed to have a choice, choose what you want to do,” said skateboarder Alana Smith. “If you’re not going to get vaccinated, wear your masks and keep people safe because at the end of the day you can ruin more than just people’s careers by not letting them compete. You can take people’s lives, and I think at the end of the day, we’re all just trying to have fun, live our lives and be safe. There’s no need to get people sick.”

While vaccination status doesn’t play a role on the front end, it could factor into decisions during contact tracing. An expert group is reviewing the positive cases and deciding based on the information who needs to quarantine and for how long.

The International Olympic Committee has announced 148 cases since the beginning of July, and that includes 16 athletes. One of those is American beach volleyball player Taylor Crabb, who is vaccinated but tested positive for COVID-19 here and was unable to compete.

“It shouldn’t be a two-tiered system for vaccinated or unvaccinated athletes,” said Tara Kirk Sell, senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and a 2004 Olympic silver medalist in swimming. “But I think when it comes to thinking about potential spread, thinking about vaccination does play a role of how likely you are to have gotten sick off a close contact and those types of things.

“I don’t want to say that there should be anything particular that unvaccinated athletes need to have done versus vaccinated athletes, but certainly the consequences of being a close contact as far as potential spread of the disease are higher amongst unvaccinated athletes so that’s something to think about.”

Kirk Sell said whether the unvaccinated athletes are spread out among the athletes or are clustered could make a difference. One unvaccinated athlete among a mostly vaccinated team might be relatively protected where a cluster of unvaccinated athletes on a team might not.

The USOPC declined to share further details on its vaccination numbers, including vaccination rates by sport. Though the United States has had greater vaccine access than most any country, the 83% vaccination rate for its delegation is in line with the 85% level the IOC said it has for national Olympic committee delegations broadly.

Archers Brady Ellison and Mackenzie Brown said they are not vaccinated, and they added they would not have come to Tokyo had it been required.

“I think they help a lot of people, but I don’t think that anything experimental should be mandatory,” Ellison said. “Until it’s approved then it should be personal choice.”

Ellison said he has already had COVID-19. Brown said they have been following the required measures.

“We wear these masks,” Brown said. “We don’t like to wear the masks. It’s not something that’s fun for us because going onto the biggest stage on the world, you want to have your face on the camera. You don’t want a mask. That takes away half your identity.”

Other U.S. athletes said they are following the protocols here and don’t find them to be too restrictive. On the rowing teams, where several athletes on the women’s teams contracted coronavirus in the early days of the pandemic, athletes are largely vaccinated.

“We, as our small team, as our boat, take it very seriously and we always mask up and we got vaccinated and we all agree and are on the same page that protecting others, protecting the Japanese public, protecting our teammates is the most important,” said lightweight women’s double sculls rower Molly Reckford.

“The worst thing to happen, in my opinion, would be losing out on your chance to race because you get COVID. Or giving someone COVID and having them end up in the hospital. So we are as cautious as we can be.”

That attitude prevailed on the U.S. team, even if a large share remains unprotected from the coronavirus.

“Obviously everybody has the freedom to do what they want with their body, and I think in this day and age it’s hard, it’s challenging,” said Michael Phelps, who is part of the NBC broadcast team here in his first Olympics since retirement. “For me, I’m very happy that I was able to get vaccinated when I did. And if I was competing, I would guarantee you I would be vaccinated as well."

Contributing: Jeff Metcalfe, Josh Peter, Olivia Rainier, Tom Schad

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 2021 Olympics: Is there a price to pay for USA's unvaccinated athletes?