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Tokyo venues for the summer Olympics will not have spectators, officials said after Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga confirmed the pandemic-delayed Tokyo 2020 Olympics will take place under a coronavirus state of emergency.
Here’s what else we know:
The White House reaffirmed its support for US athletes traveling to Tokyo, Japan, to compete in the Olympics later this month after Japan’s Olympics Committee announced all spectators will be banned from the Tokyo venues at the 2020 Olympic Games.
“The President supports the Tokyo Olympic Games and the public health measures necessary to protect athletes, staff, and spectators. He has pride in the US athletes who have trained for Tokyo Games and will be competing in the best traditions of the Olympic spirit,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Thursday.
Japan on Thursday also declared a coronavirus state of emergency for Tokyo amid increasing cases.
The US is in “close contact” with the Japanese government on planning and public health measures.
She reiterated a statement from first lady Jill Biden’s office that the White House is “still assessing the feasibility” of her attendance at the games, noting that the advance team arrives in Tokyo later this week.
With a surge in Covid-19 cases and the country lagging behind in vaccinations, Japan should have canceled the Tokyo Olympics, Dr. Jonathan Reiner, professor of medicine and surgery at George Washington University, told CNN’s John King,
“Japan probably should have canceled this Olympics as big a decision as that would have been and as disappointing as that would be to the Japanese people,” Reiner said.
Dr. Anthony Fauci expressed confidence in Covid-19 safety protocols at the forthcoming Olympics in Tokyo and suggested that he was not concerned about first lady Jill Biden’s potential attendance at the Games.
His comments come after Japan’s Olympics Committee announced all spectators will be banned from the Tokyo venues at the 2020 Olympic Games. Japan on Thursday also declared a coronavirus state of emergency for Tokyo amid increasing cases.
Fauci noted “quite strict and stringent” protocols in place for the athletes, which he described as “quite impressive.”
President Joe Biden suggested last week that his wife was likely to attend the Games, telling reporters, “We’re trying to work that out now. That’s the plan.”
Olympic and Tokyo officials say that if the rate of infections changes, they will hold a meeting to review spectator capacity for the Paralympic Games.
The group is made up of the the Government of Japan, the International Olympic Committee, the International Paralympic Committee, the Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government.
In a joint statement, the officials said they will make a decision about spectators at the Paralympic Games when the Olympic Games are over.
“The IOC and IPC, respecting this decision, support it in the interest of safe and secure Games for everybody,” it added.
The officials said “all five parties deeply regret for the athletes and for the spectators that this measure had to be put in place,” referring to the decision to bar fans from the Olympics in Tokyo and keep a state of emergency order in place for the entire duration of the Games.
Japan started inoculating its population of 126 million people with Pfizer-BioNTech shots more than two months after the vaccine rolled out in countries such as the United States and United Kingdom. And after four months, only 15% of its population is fully vaccinated.
With one of the lowest rates of vaccine confidence in the world, the government says its deliberately cautious movement on vaccine approval is to build public trust.
“I think it is more important for the Japanese government to show the Japanese people that we have done everything possible to prove the efficacy and the safety of the vaccine — to encourage the Japanese people to take the vaccine,” said Taro Kono, the minister in charge of Japan’s coronavirus vaccine rollout. “At the end of the day, we might have started slower, but we thought it would be more effective.”
A history of scandals:
Japan’s vaccine resistance dates back to the 1970s, when two infants died within 24 hours after receiving the combined diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (whooping cough) vaccination. The vaccine was temporarily suspended but confidence had already been rattled. For several years, infant vaccination rates fell, leading to a rise in cases of whooping cough.
In the late 1980s, there was another scare with the introduction of a Japanese-produced measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine. After court action and a hefty damages payout, the combined shot was discontinued in 1993 and replaced with individual vaccines.
The Tokyo 2020 Olympics — which were rescheduled to this year because of Covid-19 —will not be the first time Japan has hosted the event. In 1964, Tokyo hosted the Summer Olympics, which also happened to be the first time the Olympics had ever been held in Asia.
Despite being the Summer Olympics, the Games were held in October to avoid the heat and humidity, along with the typhoon season in September.
Japan later hosted two Winter Olympics in 1972 and 1998.
Here’s a look back at the 1964 event:
View more photos here.
Japan has recorded at least 814,315 cases and 14,865 deaths due to coronavirus since the beginning of the pandemic as of today, according to CNN’s global cases and deaths tracker.
“The number of infected cases in the area including Tokyo has been increasing since the end of last month,” Japanese Prime Minister Yoshide Suga said.
“The number of severe cases and bed occupancy rate continues to be on the low level, but considering the impact of variants, we need to enhance countermeasures so that the infection will not spread nationwide,” he added.
Only 15.1% of Japan’s population is fully vaccinated, according to CNN’s global vaccine tracker. The country is lagging behind Western countries in rolling out its vaccination drive, with 47% in the United States and nearly 50% in the UK fully vaccinated.
With more than four months since the vaccine rollout began in Japan, about 52,643,860 doses have been administered in total as of Tuesday.
Th pandemic-delayed Tokyo 2020 Olympics will now take place under a coronavirus state of emergency, according to Japanese Prime Minister Yoshide Suga today, and the Tokyo venues will no longer have spectators.
The decision to ban spectators comes as Japan lags behind Western countries in rolling out vaccines. Only 15% of its population are fully vaccinated, compared to 47% in the United States and nearly 50% in the UK, according to CNN’s global vaccine tracker.
The Olympics, which are about two weeks away, will begin on July 23 and end on Aug. 8. The state of emergency — the fourth in the Japanese capital since the pandemic began — will cover the entire period of the Games.
But this is not the first change the 16-day event has undergone leading up to its start date.
Last month, organizers said spectators would be allowed at the Olympics with a 50% venue capacity or a maximum of 10,000 people per venue. Organizers had already decided to ban overseas fans from the stands in March.
In March 2020, the Tokyo 2020 Olympics were postponed until 2021. The International Olympic Committee had faced pressure to delay the Games in light of Covid-19. The original event was supposed to take place from July 24 to Aug. 9, 2020.
The decision to ban spectators from Tokyo venues for the 2020 Olympic Games is “exactly the right thing” given the country’s current state of the coronavirus pandemic and its low vaccination rate so far, Dr. Leana Wen says.
“Let the athletes who have been working their entire lives to compete, but without the risk of super-spreader events,” she added.
Organizers insist the Olympics can be held in a safe bubble: athletes will be regularly tested, contact traced and socially distanced. By the time the Games start, officials expect more than 80% of athletes to be vaccinated.
But public health experts say there are many ways for the bubble to be punctured, especially if tens of thousands of largely unvaccinated and untested volunteers are moving between Olympic venues.
“Even without spectators, it’s not a bubble. There are too many leaks in it,” said epidemiologist Mike Toole from the Burnet Institute in Melbourne, Australia.
The third and final Olympic Playbook of Covid-19 measures says some “sport specific” volunteers will be tested regularly at the Games, without specifying how many that would include.
Opposition to the Games: Warnings from Japan’s medical community continue to grow. The Tokyo Medical Practitioners Association, an organization representing 6,000 doctors in Tokyo, wrote a letter calling for the Games to be canceled.
“The most important priority now is to fight against COVID-19 and to secure people’s lives and livelihoods,” the letter said. “Japan will bear a big responsibility if the hosting of the Olympic and Paralympic Games contributes to the spread of COVID-19 and increases the number of sufferers and deaths.”
The head of Japan’s Covid-19 taskforce, Shigeru Omi, said in June it’s “not normal” to host the Olympics during the pandemic, warning the Games would have an impact on infections in Japan.
The latest state of emergency imposed in Tokyo is the fourth in the Japanese capital since the Covid-19 pandemic began.
Tokyo lifted its previous round of state of emergency on June 20, at the end of the country’s fourth wave of infections. It has continued to impose restrictions under a softer “quasi-emergency,” such as an 8 p.m. curfew on dine-in service at restaurants. But cases have been rising again, prompting health experts to call for stricter measures.
When the Tokyo Olympics put out a call for volunteers, Nima Esnaashari signed up along with thousands of others in Japan eager to soak up the atmosphere of the world’s biggest sporting event.
But the closer the Games get, the more anxious he’s becoming about the risk of catching Covid-19. Like the majority of Japan’s population, he hasn’t been vaccinated and doesn’t know if he’ll receive a dose before the pandemic-delayed Games begin on July 23.
Games organizers plan to vaccinate 18,000 Olympic workers, including referees, staff, doping testers and some volunteers. But with some 70,000 volunteers, there won’t be enough to go around. It is not clear how many of the volunteers will get a dose.
Of the 80,000 people who signed up to help at the Games, at least 10,000 have quit, mostly due to the pandemic. Esnaashari is still not sure if he’ll pull out.
Tokyo organizers say the recent withdrawal of around 10,000 volunteers in Japan won’t impact operations because of other Covid-19 restrictions, including a ban on spectators meaning fewer overall numbers at the Games.
Volunteers say they’ve been given little protection against Covid-19 beyond cloth masks, hand sanitizer and pamphlets instructing them to keep others at a safe 2-meter distance. The Olympic website encourages volunteers to take public transportation between their homes and Olympic venues.
Doctors are warning of the risks of having so many unvaccinated people moving in and out of the Olympic village. They fear the Olympics could push Japan’s already overstretched medical system to the brink.
The decision to ban spectators at all Tokyo venues for the 2020 Olympics came as the Japanese capital reported 920 new infections on Wednesday, the highest daily caseload since the middle of May.
“There is a remarkable increase of infections, especially in the big cities in the Tokyo area,” said Yasutoshi Nishimura, the minister in charge of Japan’s pandemic response. The more infectious Delta variant now accounts for up to 30% of cases, he added.
The new state of emergency for Tokyo will run from July 12 to Aug. 22 — covering the 16 days of the Summer Games in its entirety.
“The number of severe cases and bed occupancy rate continues to be on the low level, but considering the impact of variants, we need to enhance countermeasures so that the infection will not spread nationwide,” Suga added.
The state of emergency is the fourth in the Japanese capital since the pandemic began.
After years of training, some Olympic athlete’s dreams are already being derailed by Covid-19 before the games even start. Others are having to make hard decisions as authorities impose strict rules and protocols aimed at stopping the spread of the virus.
Nick Suriano, a wrestler, took years off from college to prep first for the Tokyo Olympics in 2020 and then in 2021. A positive Covid-19 test forced him to miss the meet at which he would qualify. So he won’t go.
Kim Gaucher, a Canadian basketball player, had to fight to bring her breastfeeding 3-month-old to the games after Japanese authorities imposed a no-friends-or-family rule to control Covid-19.
Japan is holding the Olympics despite warnings from many public health professionals that they should be postponed again or called off. It is enacting strict protocols that limit the number of athletes and coaches who can travel to Tokyo and has removed spectators.
Yet athletes have already tested positive after arriving in Japan. That includes a Serbian rower.
Sports and the spread: There is already evidence that major sporting events do spread Covid. In Europe, the club soccer tournament being held in multiple cities, sometimes with tens of thousands of fans, has already demonstrated what can happen.
The tournament has been associated with an increase in cases in certain cities, according to reports from Reuters:
Scotland’s health authority said 1,991 people had been identified as attending a Euro 2020 event while infectious, of whom 1,294 had travelled to London and 397 gone to Wembley where England played Scotland.
Finland said more than 300 nationals were infected while supporting their team.
“We need to look at how people get there: Are they traveling in large crowded convoys of buses? And when they leave the stadiums, are they going into crowded bars and pubs to watch the matches?” World Health Organization senior emergency officer Catherine Smallwood said in a statement.
So it will be an Olympics without spectators — and without some of the best athletes.
While spectators will be banned from Tokyo venues at the 2020 Olympic Games, events taking place outside of Tokyo, in areas not under a state of emergency, are still being considered for spectators, Japan’s Olympics Committee said Thursday.
The announcement was made following a meeting of five Olympic and Japanese government groups responsible for the Games.
Japanese Olympic Committee head Seiko Hashimoto called it “a very heavy judgement,” adding that due to the state of the pandemic they have “no choice but to hold the Games in a limited way.”
There are total 42 venues listed on the Tokyo 2020 website. Twenty-five are in Tokyo and the rest 17 are in seven other prefectures.
Earlier today, Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike told a group of Olympics officials set to review the decision spectators that her government wanted to share a “sense of crisis” with the central government and that the Tokyo government was making every effort to control the movement of people to prevent infection.
The governor added that her government wanted to vaccinate as many people involved in the games.
Some context: The pandemic-delayed Tokyo 2020 Olympics will take place under a coronavirus state of emergency, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshide Suga confirmed Thursday.
Suga said he had decided to declare a new state of emergency for the capital from July 12 to Aug. 22 – covering the 16 days of the embattled Games in its entirety.
Tokyo venues for summer Olympics will not have spectators.
Earlier today, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshide Suga confirmed the pandemic-delayed Tokyo 2020 Olympics will take place under a coronavirus state of emergency.
The announcement was made following a meeting of five Olympic and Japanese government groups responsible for the Games.
Seiko Hashimoto with the Japanese Olympic Committee said, “A very heavy judgement was made.”
Hashimoto said due to the pandemic, they have “no choice but to hold the Games in a limited way.”
