Today anchor Savannah Guthrie said that she will skip covering the Olympic Games over Zika concerns. The Hollywood Reporter notes that Guthrie, who is expecting her second child, is “most high-profile TV personality to opt out of the Games.”
Guthrie announced her pregnancy on Today on Tuesday morning. “I’m not going to be able to go to Rio, so you’ll have to go to beach volleyball without me.” Guthrie indicated that she was instead looking forward to covering “the campaign season.” Her decision follows the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidelines, which advise pregnant women to avoid traveling to countries where there is an outbreak.
Since Zika became a growing concern in Brazil, NBCUniversal announced that employees who were concerned with contracting the virus could opt out of working in the country. According to THR, a handful of network employees have already decided to forgo Olympic coverage.
For over a year, Brazil has seen a significant outbreak of Zika. Since the outbreak, the country has seen a significant increase of babies born with microcephaly. In March, the World Health Organization estimated that over 2,500 babies in Brazil had been born with the Zika-related disorder.
Image via AP.
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