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Summer Olympic Games

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India Pagan playing basketball for Stony Brook University. Photo from Stony Brook Athletics

India Pagan has a tattoo of the outline of Puerto Rico on her right arm. The image has two stars on it, where Hatillo and Mayagüez are located.

India Pagan practices with Puerto Rico’s Olympic team. Photo from the Pagan family

The connection to Puerto Rico for Pagan, a graduate of Stony Brook University who is now in a master’s program, runs much more than skin deep.

The 6-foot, 1-inch basketball star, who helped Stony Brook win back-to-back America East conference championships, is representing the island at the upcoming Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, joining the first women’s basketball team from Puerto Rico to compete at the games.

A talented forward who plays in the low post area near the basket, Pagan, who became one of only 18 Seawolves to score over 1,000 points in her career and set a school record last year for the highest shooting percentage for a season, is the second-youngest member on a team Puerto Ricans are calling “the 12 warriors.”

When she saw pictures of herself on the main Puerto Rican Olympic pages on Instagram and Facebook confirming she’d made the team, Pagan took screenshots and called her parents Moises, who was born in Mayagüez, and Carmen, born in Hatillo.

The excitement was palpable over the phone, as her parents “were both yelling” with delight, she said.

“I’m so thankful to be Puerto Rican,” Pagan said. “I say that every day.”

Indeed, Pagan, who spoke Spanish in her house growing up, traveled regularly to Puerto Rico to see her large and supportive extended family.

Her mother Carmen, who was a competitive runner when she was younger, wanted to give her daughter an opportunity to compete on a larger stage she herself didn’t have growing up as the 17th of 18 children.

A runner whose floor-length braided hair was so long that she had to pin it inside her shirt to prevent false starts, Carmen Pagan didn’t have the chance to compete against other athletes from around the world in her specialty, the 400- and 800-meter races.

“That’s why we went the extra mile with India,” mother said.

India Pagan playing for SBU. Photo from Stony Brook Athletics

“We are accomplishing our dreams through her,” Moises Pagan added. “She exceeded our expectations when it came to basketball.”

Soon after learning of her opportunity to represent Puerto Rico, India Pagan found out that the athletes would attend the Olympics under strict restrictions and would play in empty stadiums, to reduce the risk of spreading COVID-19.

Her family, who has already seen Pagan play in Italy among other places, canceled their travel plans.

India Pagan still feels fortunate to be at the games and to have the long-distance support of people she considers family in Puerto Rico; New London, Connecticut, where she was born and raised; and on Long Island.

Stony Brook “is my family and the girls are my sisters,” she said. That includes two of her close friends on the Stony Brook team, Courtney Furr and Leighah-Amori Wool, who cried when Pagan left and are staying in touch across the world.

Moises Pagan, who is 6 feet, 5 inches tall and played one year of semiprofessional basketball in Puerto Rico, recalls how his daughter kept his size-15-feet shoebox filled with acceptances from colleges. India Pagan visited Stony Brook last and decided within moments of her arrival that she wanted to be a Seawolf.

Her parents made her wait a day to decide. A day later, she took the final women’s basketball scholarship.

Her parents felt the same connection to the team, often traveling with home-cooked food for the players, who called them “Ma” and “Pa.”

Moises cooked around 40 empanadas for the team, while Carmen contributed a chicken-and-rice dish and meatballs.

“We like to give back to the team and the coaching staff,” Moises Pagan said. “They’re our extended family.”

Despite the connection India Pagan felt at Stony Brook, she wasn’t initially prepared to stay for the extra year of eligibility granted to athletes amid the pandemic.

Speaking to her new coach Ashley Langford, Pagan changed her mind.

Langford is thrilled for the experience Pagan will have at the Olympics. She told her new coach how much more physical the Olympic players are than the collegiate competitors.

For Pagan, various women have served as inspirations and role models.

She admires plus-size model Ashley Graham’s confidence and appreciates her ability to represent a group of women often excluded in modeling.

India Pagan at 13 years old. Photo from the Pagan family

Pagan also literally and physically looks up to American basketball star Brittney Griner. At 6 feet, 8 inches tall, Griner is also not the typical woman in society.

While Pagan said COVID remains in the back of her mind, she expressed confidence in the health protocols designed to protect athletes and area residents.

Even before reaching the Olympic Village, Pagan described how each floor has security. The team isn’t allowed to leave the hotel unless they are attending practice.

“We wake up, eat breakfast, go to practice and come back,” she said. “The protocols are extreme. They want to protect the athletes.”

Pagan’s parents said they remain concerned for their daughter’s health, although they feel reassured by safety measures that include seeing the sights of Tokyo without getting off the bus.

While the flights to Tokyo took over 23 hours, which makes the limited travel and other opportunities disappointing, Carmen Pagan said her daughter and the rest of the team are focused on making the most of their Olympic opportunity. The team “is there to play their hearts out for Puerto Rico,” the mother said.

Langford sees India Pagan as a winner, as she is “representing our university and women’s basketball. Regardless of the outcome, she’s already won. This is an amazing accomplishment.”

In addition to the memories from her Olympic experience, Pagan is looking forward to getting a tattoo of the five Olympic rings on her body.

The historic Puerto Rico opener is against China July 27.

While the Pagans won’t be able to watch their daughter compete in Tokyo in person, they are likely to gather with extended family, where everyone will “bring a dish,” Moises Pagan said. “Let the games begin!”

Stock photo

Starting on July 23, Tokyo will host the Summer Olympic Games with athletes from around the world without any spectators.

Medical director of Healthcare Epidemiology at Stony Brook University Hospital

Already postponed a year amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the games will look much more like the National Basketball Association bubble games and Major League Baseball’s empty stadiums than the current version of professional American sports.

“There is tremendous vaccination disparity throughout the globe,” said Susan Donelan, medical director of Healthcare Epidemiology at Stony Brook University Hospital, in an email. “Despite what many Americans believe, the global pandemic is very much alive and problematic. Superimpose this on the fact that another state of emergency has just been declared in Tokyo due to rising COVID-19 cases, and it is not difficult to understand how this decision was arrived at.”

Indeed, the Olympics draw athletes from close to 200 countries and territories, with thousands of competitors representing themselves, their families and their countries.

In Japan, just over 15% of the population is fully vaccinated, which is still “low compared with 47.4% in the United States and almost 50% in Britain, according to Sunil Dhuper, chief medical officer at St. Charles Hospital. “That greatly increases the probability of an explosion in the number of Covid infection cases especially if the Olympic stadiums are packed or even at 50% capacity.”

While people in the United States are increasingly relaxing restrictions after the increasing availability of vaccines, health officials throughout the world have not only had to contend with the uneven availability of the vaccine in different countries, but also with the spread of the more infectious delta variant.

The original virus, or so-called wild type, came from Wuhan, China. Over time, viruses mutate, typically during replication, when they incorrectly copy one or more of the base pairs in their genes.

Sunil Dhuper, chief medical officer at St. Charles Hospital

While most mutations are harmless, some can make a virus more problematic. Termed variants, viruses that differ from the original can produce different symptoms or have different qualities.

The delta variant, which started in India in December of 2020, has become the dominant strain in the United States and, likely in Suffolk County, in part because an infected person can transmit it much more easily.

The delta variant “concentrates in the upper respiratory cells, which is one of the reasons why it transmits so much easier among people and why it’s a concern,” said Adrian Popp, chair of Infection Control at Huntington Hospital/Northwell Health and associate professor of medicine at Hofstra School of Medicine.

Indeed, the delta variant is 50% more transmissible than the alpha, or UK variant, which was about 50% more transmissible than the original, Donelan wrote.

Boosters

Amid the spread of the delta variant, companies like Pfizer have been meeting with federal health officials to discuss the potential need for a booster shot.

Pfizer’s rationale for a booster is that the vaccine’s ability to prevent infection and symptomatic disease seems to wane six months after vaccination, citing data from the Israel Ministry of Health, according to Dhuper.

The World Health Organization, however, indicates that “more data are needed before reaching the same conclusion,” Dhuper explained in an email. A recent study in the journal Nature found evidence that the immune response to vaccines is “strong and potentially long lasting,” which is based on the data that the germinal centers in the lymph nodes are producing immune cells directed at COVID-19.

At this point, officials from the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are unwilling to provide an emergency use authorization for a booster.

These government agencies believe people who have been vaccinated are protected from severe disease and death, including variants like delta, Dhuper wrote.

Adrian Popp, chair of Infection Control at Huntington Hospital/Northwell Health

Popp expressed confidence in the CDC to determine when a booster might be necessary, as the national health organization reviews data for the entire country.

Someone who is vaccinated in the United States should have “decent immunity” against this altered virus, according to Popp. The immunity will vary from person to person depending on the underlying health and immunity.

Indeed, Popp said several vaccinated people who have come to Huntington Hospital recently have tested positive for the virus.

The hospital discovered the cases, all but two of which were asymptomatic, because they tested for the virus for people who were coming to the hospital for other reasons, such as a broken hip. Two of the cases had mild symptoms, while the others were asymptomatic.

“The effectiveness of the current COVID vaccines is quite high,” Dhuper wrote. “In fact, it is much higher than some other vaccines we commonly receive.”

He contrasted this with the annual flu vaccine, which has an effectiveness of around 40 to 60% from year to year.

Dhuper also explained that antibodies are only part of the immune response that makes vaccines effective. T-cells and memory B cells are also involved. Some researchers have found that T cells in the blood of people who recovered from the original version of COVID-19 recognized the three mutant strains of the virus, which could reduce the severity of any subsequent infection.

Based on the available data and current information in Japan, Popp said he would likely participate in the Olympics in Tokyo if he were a member of an Olympic team.