Noah Lyles raced after testing positive for Covid at the Olympics – he shouldn’t have

Lyles and his team broke no rules, but the decision was reckless. He did not do the right thing

You’d have to be a monster not to feel some sympathy at the predicament the American athlete Noah Lyles faced on Tuesday at the Paris Olympics when he tested positive for our old and persistent friend, Covid-19.

A couple of days later he was due to race in the men’s 200 metres final. He had a chance of winning. Chances like that don’t come around all that often (every four years, to be precise). He could, if all had gone well, have emulated Usain Bolt by winning the 100m and 200m at the same Olympics.

The temptation to go ahead and hope for the best was clearly irresistible, and his coach agreed. No rules were broken, but after he secured the bronze medal he was exhausted, plainly ill, attended to by medics, and taken from the track in a wheelchair.

Lyles and his team broke no rules, but in my opinion he did not do the right thing. At the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, during the pandemic, he would have been obliged to self-isolate and miss the race. This time there are no such restrictions, but he was still going around spreading the virus and endangering the health of others.

Covid is still around, even though we have vaccines and better ameliorative treatments, but there remains no cure and we take far too easygoing an attitude to what remains a potentially deadly disease. Not everyone at the Stade de France has been vaccinated or is up to date with their boosters – and even if they are, they can still get very poorly, with the distinct possibility of long Covid setting in.

The high-profile struggles and ultimate death of Derek Draper from this terrible condition is a further stark reminder that we are being extremely foolish if we think we can just all forget about Covid. Like Brexit, we’d love to pretend it’s all behind us, but its baleful effects are only a few coughs away.

The rules in Paris, and more widely, still err on the side of reckless – and a way should have been found to take Lyles away from others, even if compassion dictates he should be allowed to race. We can be flexible with our guidelines. At the moment, in Britain, you’re free to go to work, wander around on public transport and attend crowded events (such as the Olympics) even if you’re spluttering your viral load over everyone in sight, not even wearing a mask.

Unlike the flu, Covid seems less of a seasonal illness. In the US, especially, there’s a Covid summer spike going on – and new variants of the virus are cropping up all the time; some more serious, some less so. All are dangerous.

Meantime, the NHS has decided, once again, to be pointlessly restrictive in setting the criteria for who can get a Covid vaccination booster – only the over-65s and those with clinical vulnerabilities. The rest of the country can either go private for a jab, or take their chances. There are still millions of unused vaccines due to be chucked away rather than distributed to those of us who still take Covid seriously.

If I were going to the actual Olympics, either as a spectator or (less probable) a competitor, I’d be damn sure to get a booster first – and I certainly wouldn’t attend if I tested positive. Yes, I do want a gold medal, or at least a badge, for my sense of social responsibility – and so ought Noah Lyles.