World No. 3 Rory McIlroy is more comfortable about competing in the Rio Olympics, and his mind is at ease after seeking advice regarding the Zika virus in the last week.
“Even if I do contract Zika, it’s not the end of the world,” McIlroy said Wednesday ahead of this weekend’s Memorial Tournament, according to European media reports. “It takes six months to pass through your system, and you’re fine.”
Last week, McIlroy said he was monitoring the Zika situation in Brazil ahead of competing in the Games in August, an understandable statement that nonetheless drew headlines.
McIlroy noted Wednesday that if one senses symptoms of the virus after spending time in Brazil, he or she can get tested for it.
“What the health experts are really worried about, it’s not the individual cases,” McIlroy said, according to Irish media. “It’s the fact that 500,000 people go to Rio, and they spend three weeks at the Games, they go back out of Rio and some might have contracted Zika and don’t know about it, and then all of a sudden instead of it being this virus that’s contained in a certain part of the world, it’s now a global epidemic. And I think that’s the real concern.”