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It goes to say that when more testing is done, more cases will be detected. However if less testing is done, less cases detected. Usually people only look at the number of cases but missed out on the number of test done according to the number of population. Well seems like rich countries may have more resources to conduct more tests. However poor countries may have difficulties to carry out more tests due to financial constraints.
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What the professor has mentioned in the month of June that the Tokyo Olympics could help spread Covid 19 has finally come true. What he said is correct and right now the virus is spreading nonstop even though the Olympics has not started and will only start on 23rd July 2021. The professor has warned about the risks of having Tokyo Olympics during pandemic in June. Whatever he said is really happening now.
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57 minutes ago, rybak said:
Article from early June... Go away with those links and posts.
Noted.
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Japanese scientists warn that Tokyo Olympics could help spread COVID-19
A group of Japanese scientists, including some of the nation’s most senior advisers on the COVID-19 pandemic, is warning that allowing spectators at the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics will help the virus spread domestically and internationally. Their recommendation to bar or at least limit spectators, not yet formally published but described to ScienceInsider in general terms, represents an increasingly outspoken challenge from scientists to the government and the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which remain adamant about going ahead with the games just 6 weeks before the 23 July opening ceremony.
Japan and IOC have already barred tourists from entering Japan to watch the games in person. But millions of people in Japan could attend competitions at more than 40 venues in and around Tokyo.
That would be a bad idea, says the informal group of 15 to 20 top public health experts, who have met virtually on Sundays since last year to discuss the pandemic. But they worry their warning will fall on deaf ears. Most of the group members likely favor canceling the games, says one member who did not want to be identified. But given the current stance of Japan’s government and IOC, “the discussion has shifted as to whether we should welcome a domestic audience or not,” this scientist says. But it may be too late “to consider any drastic changes in the way that the Tokyo Olympic Games are organized,” says another member, Hiroshi Nishiura, an epidemiologist at Kyoto University. He says the governmental coronavirus control headquarters, which is under the Cabinet Office, has never publicly discussed the risks of holding the games.Shigeru Omi, chair of the government’s top COVID-19 advisory panel, which reports to the coronavirus headquarters, and leader of the informal group, has said he will unveil the recommendations before 20 June. It is unclear whether Omi will present the report as coming from the informal group of experts or get his official panel to endorse it. The precise timing of the release and whether it should go to the government or IOC is still under discussion, Nishiura says.
The Olympics, originally scheduled for summer 2020, were postponed 1 year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. But Tokyo and other major cities remain under a COVID-19 state of emergency, and a slow vaccination rollout has led to calls for further postponement or even outright cancellation of the games. Recent public opinion polls indicate 60% to 80% of the country favors cancellation. Yet IOC officials and Japanese politicians, mindful of the billions of dollars at stake, are pressing ahead. When asked at a 21 May virtual news conference whether the games would go forward even if Tokyo were under a COVID-19 state of emergency, John Coates, an IOC vice president, said: “The answer is absolutely yes.”
The fraught relationship between the experts and Japan’s politicians and IOC officials was on display last week when Omi appeared before two legislative committees. Holding the Olympic Games “is not normal under current circumstances,” he said at a 2 June appearance before a health committee of the lower legislative chamber, according to local press reports. The next day, he told the upper chamber’s health committee that Olympic organizers should impose “stringent preparations” to minimize the risk of spreading infection. He added that giving opinions was meaningless, “unless they reach the International Olympic Committee.” But Norihisa Tamura, Japan’s minister of health, labor and welfare, brushed off Omi’s remarks, calling them just a “voluntary report of research results” in comments to reporters.
Nishiura says one concern is that the games could help spread more contagious COVID-19 variants, particularly given the large numbers of athletes, coaches, officials, media, local volunteers, and domestic spectators. Guidelines from the Japanese Olympic Committee ask athletes and support staff to limit travel to official accommodations and venues; avoid public transportation, tourist attractions, restaurants, and bars; and leave the country within 2 days of the conclusion of their events. Although the guidelines say noncompliance could lead to being barred from competing, Nishiura says there is no indication of how these restrictions will be enforced. As yet, there are no contingency plans for handling clusters of cases that might overstretch health care facilities. Because of a shortage of hospital beds and oxygen supplies during the recent fourth wave of infections, “a substantial number of people died in their own homes,” Nishiura says. In a bit of lucky timing, however, Japan is coming off its fourth wave of infection. Daily new cases have dropped from a peak of more than 7000 on 12 May to just over 2000 on 6 June.
Japan’s late and slow-moving vaccination drive adds to these worries. Japan has administered more than 17 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines primarily to medical workers and those 65 and older, covering about 6.8% of the population. Vaccination will start for those younger than 65 in the middle of this month. But the slow pace of vaccination means the Olympics will be going on “when only elderly people are vaccinated,” Nishiura says.
The impact of any Olympic-related infections could spread throughout the country and even globally, says Hitoshi Oshitani, a public health specialist at Tohoku University who is an occasional member of the Sunday study group. Over the past year and a half, new cases rose nationwide after most long holiday periods, such as the New Year and the spring Golden Week when most workers can take a full week off. The Olympics will run into the August summer vacation period when many urban residents return to their hometowns to visit parents or grandparents. Last year, a public information campaign successfully convinced many to spend their vacations at home and new cases did not rise significantly, Oshitani says. But with the excitement surrounding the Olympics, he says, “I’m not sure people will listen to recommendations” to limit travel.
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Tokyo Olympics: South African cases raise fear of Covid-19 cluster at athletes villages
Organisers on Sunday reported 10 new cases connected to the Olympics including media, contractors and other personnel
Infection rates are climbing among the general population of the capital, topping 1,000 new cases for four consecutive daysTokyo Olympics organisers on Sunday reported that two South African footballers and a video analyst had tested positive for Covid-19 in the Olympic Village, raising fears of a cluster just days before the opening ceremony.
Players Thabiso Monyane and Kamohelo Mahlatsi and analyst Mario Masha are in isolation after testing positive, Team South Africa said, adding that the whole delegation had been following anti-coronavirus rules.
“They have been tested on arrival, daily at the Olympic Village and complied with all the mandatory measures,” a statement said.
Athletes and delegations from around the world have begun arriving for the Games, amid mounting concerns that Japan’s Covid-19 cases, already experiencing an uptick, will rise even further.
Organisers reported 10 new cases in total connected to the Olympics on Sunday including media, contractors and other personnel. That compares with 15 new cases on Saturday, which included the first case of infection at the Olympic Village, a complex of flats and dining areas that will house 6,700 athletes and officials at its peak.
An International Olympic Committee member from South Korea tested positive for the coronavirus on landing in Tokyo. Ryu Seung-min, a former Olympic athlete, is vaccinated, reflecting the infection risk even from vaccinated attendees.Tokyo 2020 Olympic Village opens to the media
Meanwhile, the Tokyo metropolitan government reported 1,008 daily coronavirus cases on Sunday, topping the 1,000 mark for the fifth straight day and adding to signs that the capital is seeing a fifth wave of the virus. The figure compares with 1,410 infections confirmed the previous day, the highest single-day spike since January 21.
The seven-day rolling average of new cases in Tokyo, which is currently under a fourth Covid-19 state of emergency, was up 45.6 per cent from the previous week at 1,068 per day.
With the opening ceremony set to take place on Friday, public concern remains high that the games could become a superspreader event amid the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus, first detected in India.
The approval rating for Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s cabinet has fallen to 35.9 per cent, the lowest level since he took office last year, a Kyodo News poll showed on Sunday, adding to signs of public discontent with the government’s determination to hold the Tokyo Olympics despite the coronavirus pandemic.
The disapproval rating rose to 49.8 per cent, the highest on record for the Suga administration. In the previous survey conducted last month, the support rate stood at 44.0 per cent, while 42.2 per cent disapproved of the cabinet.
Covid-19 cases rise despite Games pledge of 85 per cent vaccination rateOn Saturday, International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach appealed for Japanese fans to get behind the Games, saying he was “very well aware of the scepticism” surrounding the event.
Many worry that increased precautions such as mandatory apps, GPS tracking and “minders” for Olympic visitors will not be nearly enough to stop the introduction of fast-spreading variants to a largely unvaccinated population already struggling with mounting cases.
“It’s all based on the honour system, and it’s causing concern that media people and other participants may go out of their hotels to eat in Ginza,” Takeshi Saiki, an opposition lawmaker, said of what he called Japan’s lax border controls. So far, most Olympic athletes and other participants have been exempted from typical quarantine requirements.
But they are subject to a restrictive environment at the village, with daily testing, social distancing and no movement possible outside the Olympic “bubble”. They are under orders to leave Japan 48 hours after their event.
There have been regular breakdowns in security as the sheer enormity of trying to police so many visitors becomes clearer. Photos and social media posts show foreigners linked to the Games breaking mask rules and drinking in public, smoking in airports – even, if the bios are accurate, posting on dating apps.
“There are big holes in the bubbles,” said Ayaka Shiomura, another opposition lawmaker, speaking of the so-called “bubbles” that are supposed to separate the Olympics’ participants from the rest of the country.
But as the restrictions are tested by increasing numbers of visitors, officials have been blamed for doing too much, and too little.
The government and the Games’ organisers “are treating visitors as if they are potential criminals,” Chizuko Ueno, a professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Tokyo, said on YouTube.
There is also lingering resentment over a widespread sentiment that Japan is facing this balancing act because the International Olympic Committee needs to have the Games happen, regardless of the state of the virus, to get the billions of dollars in media revenue critical to its survival.
Will Tokyo Olympics with no fans affect how athletes perform?“The Olympics are held as an IOC business. Not only the Japanese people, but others around the world, were turned off by the Olympics after all of us saw the true nature of the Olympics and the IOC through the pandemic,” mountaineer Ken Noguchi told the online edition of the Nikkan Gendai newspaper.
One of the highest-profile security problems came last month when a Ugandan team member arriving in Japan tested positive for what turned out to be the more contagious Delta variant. He was quarantined at the airport, but the rest of the nine-person team was allowed to travel more than 500km (300 miles) on a chartered bus to their pre-Olympics camp, where a second Ugandan tested positive, forcing the team and seven city officials and drivers who had close contact with them to self-isolate.
On Friday, a Uganda team member went missing, raising more questions about the oversight of Olympic participants. On Saturday, organisers said the first resident of the Olympic Village had tested positive for Covid-19. Officials said it was not an athlete, but was a non-resident of Japan.
For the first 14 days in Japan, Olympic visitors outside the athletes’ village are banned from using public transport and from going to bars, tourist spots and most restaurants. They cannot visit anywhere that is not specifically mentioned in activity plans submitted in advance. There are some exceptions authorised by organisers: specifically designated convenience stores, takeaway places and, in rare cases, some restaurants that have private rooms.
Athletes, tested daily for the coronavirus, will be isolated in the athletes’ village and are expected to stay there, or in similarly locked-down bubbles at venues or training sites. Those who break the rules could be sent home or receive fines and lose the right to participate in the Games.
Everyone associated with the Olympics has to install two apps when entering Japan. One is an immigration and health reporting app, and the other is a contact tracing app that uses Bluetooth. They will also have to consent to allowing organisers to use GPS to monitor their movements and contacts through their smartphones if there’s an infection or violation of rules. -
Like it or not Tokyo Olympics have become the place whereby covid cases have been spreading very fast by now although the Olympics have not started. Tokyo Olympics will only start on 23rd July 2021 with the Opening Ceremony.
However the unfortunate part is that there are some officials, athletes and coaches who have been detected as positive covid. However IOC refused to reveal the names and the status of the athletes, coaches and officials due to privacy reason.
So the question is simple. Should Olympics be held during pandemic time? Is it a wise thing to do? Yes it is alright to have Olympics as it is a grand and prestigious events. However to have Olympics during pandemic time will only encourage the widespread of the virus and endanger the athletes life.
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Threat of Covid-19 spreading grows at Tokyo Olympics with three infections at athletes village. What happened to 85 per cent vaccination rate pledge?
More than a dozen Olympic-related positive tests have been recorded in Tokyo since visitors started arriving for the 2020 Games, including a first case at the Athletes Village
It started with a Ugandan coach testing positive for coronavirus on arrival in Tokyo on June 20. Three days later, an athlete in the same team returned a positive result.
A Serbian rower tested positive on arrival on July 4 and a Lithuanian was next five days later. On July 14, seven staff members at a hotel in Hamamatsu housing Brazilian athletes were shown to be infected.
On Friday, a member of the Nigerian delegation became the first Olympic visitor to be hospitalised, and the next day, organisers revealed that the coronavirus had finally penetrated the Athletes Village – set to accommodate 11,000 people over two weeks – where an unnamed person tested positive and was sent to a hotel for isolation. By Sunday morning, the cases of infection had risen to three. If that wasn’t enough, International Olympic Committee (IOC) member Ryu Seung-min, of South Korea, tested positive after arriving in Tokyo. Saturday’s official tally alone was 15 infections, before Ryu’s case was revealed.
The Japanese capital is still under a state of emergency amid a six-month-high surge in new Covid-19 cases but the IOC is standing firm in the face of widespread calls to cancel the Games, promising a safe and secure Olympics with at least 85 per cent of all athletes and officials to be fully vaccinated.Covid-19 cases at the Olympics may, for now, be a trickle, but does the 85 per cent vaccination pledge offer adequate protection to prevent a flood and a potential catastrophe of Olympic proportions? It just about does, said Fabian Lim Chin Leong, associate professor of exercise physiology at the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine in Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
“The ideal is always to strive for 100 per cent of vaccination rate, but this may not be possible for practical reasons,” Lim told the Post. “For example, people with health conditions that may not be suitable for vaccination, people who do not consent to the vaccination, and differences in availability of vaccines among countries taking part in the Olympic Games.
“In most public health settings, 70 to 80 per cent of a vaccination rate would be accepted as the level that achieves herd immunity.”
Around 11,000 athletes and 7,000 officials are expected to arrive for the Tokyo Games, which open on July 23 and runs until August 8. IOC President Thomas Bach said this month that 85 per cent of athletes and officials living in the Olympic Village would be fully vaccinated, rising from a June prediction of 75 per cent.
The IOC also said in March, when vaccines were not widely available, that 270 world championships and world cups held between September 2020 and March this year resulted in no outbreaks, despite involving more than 30,000 athletes.
It is not mandatory for participants to be vaccinated but Olympic advisers have said it hardly mattered because vaccination had never been the primary strategy against an outbreak in the first place. Medical and sports analysts have said the 85 per cent rate offered an acceptable coverage considering the herd immunity threshold of 75 to 80 per cent set by most countries.
Measures to prevent the spread of the virus – with the Olympics deemed a potential superspreader event by some doctors – remain paramount.
“Eighty-five per cent is what we’re working with. It is good enough because that’s what we have. It is better than 84 per cent. It will substantially reduce the risk even more,” said Brian McCloskey, a public health adviser to the IOC who chairs an independent expert panel that developed Covid-19 countermeasures for the Games.
“I would doubt whether you could calculate a statistically significant difference between the effect of 85 per cent and 90 per cent. It just wouldn’t make a huge difference. When [the IOC] started planning the kind of measures that we would use for the Games, we did not consider vaccination as part of that. So vaccination is a bonus on top of these measures.”
All Olympic participants will observe a strict regimen of testing, masking and social distancing as outlined in the IOC’s “playbook” that provides safety guidelines for the Games. They must undergo daily coronavirus screening and will be sent to the Athletes Village’s fever clinic if they have a temperature of 37.5 degrees Celsius or higher or test positive. In Japan, their locations must remain traceable by GPS and they should stay within the village, competition venue or training grounds. No cheering, hugging and high-fives are permitted.
Winners will not have medals placed around their necks but must take them off a tray during the presentation ceremony. Organisers have threatened to fine or disqualify rule-breaking athletes, and even expel them from Japan.While officials have come under fire for insisting on staging the Games amid a pandemic, other big events have been held this year such as grand slam tennis tournaments the French Open and Wimbledon.
The European Championship football tournament that ended in July had spectators returning to stadiums at reduced capacities. Fans were asked to mask up and keep a distance of at least 1.5 metres, while certain stadiums required proof of a negative coronavirus test. For the final, fans were asked to show proof of full vaccination or a negative coronavirus test with London’s Wembley Stadium allowing 60,000 spectators in to watch England lose on penalties to Italy.
Still, social-distancing measures were ignored as maskless supporters gathered after the match. The WHO warned that Euro 2020 crowds could become superspreader events and authorities in England, Scotland and Denmark reported an uptick in coronavirus cases because of those games.British Prime Minister Boris Johnson defended the decision of allowing more than 60,000 spectators to attend the final, as the vaccines had created “a considerable wall of immunity”.
Yet for the Olympic Games, organisers had always planned for a “bubble”. Striving for a 100 per cent vaccination rate minimises the risks but is not possible for multiple reasons, said Brett Toresdahl, a sports medicine doctor at New York’s Hospital for Special Surgery.
“A vaccination rate of over 80 per cent combined with the other prevention measures have lowered the risk of Covid-19 to a level that is acceptable to the vast majority of athletes and their medical teams,” Toresdahl said.
“The estimated vaccination rate of over 80 per cent within the Olympic and Paralympic Village is currently higher than in any other country,” he added.
As vaccines become more readily available, the IOC and manufacturers have worked to ensure national delegations have ready access to jabs. The Chinese Olympic Committee in March offered to provide China-made vaccines for athletes going to Tokyo 2020 and the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics. Russia has also offered the Sputnik V vaccine to some African nations.
In May, the IOC struck a deal with German vaccine developer BioNTech and US pharmaceutical company Pfizer to provide their Covid-19 vaccine. Inoculation hubs were set up in the capitals of Rwanda and Qatar for delegations whose countries couldn’t provide injections locally.
Two out of five Afghan athletes were inoculated with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, under the IOC’s agreement with the companies, in the Qatar vaccination hub, its National Olympic Committee told the Post.
Tracking down the vaccination rates of each nation’s delegations is also an uphill task. The IOC declined to reveal the number of vaccines provided to each country. Most Olympic committees did not respond to the Post’s requests for comment. The few that did decline to reveal the number of athletes who have already received jabs.
In Hong Kong, close to 100 per cent of its 46 athletes competing in the Olympics will be vaccinated. Yet, the exact figure remains undisclosed, deemed by the Hong Kong Sports Institute as “very personal and related to athletes’ privacy”.
The US Olympic and Paralympic Committee is also not tracking or mandating its 800-plus athletes to be vaccinated but replies from responsive Olympic committees offer a glimpse into the difficulties of getting athletes and staff inoculated.
Slovakia has around 90 per cent of its 41 athletes vaccinated, its Olympic committee said. “Just a few members were not interested in getting vaccinated. Some were infected by Sars-CoV-2 in February or March, so they were still within the 180 days period of natural immunisation,” its spokesman said, using the coronavirus’ scientific name.
As for Malawi, one out of its five taking part athletes is underage. The 15-year-old will attend the Games unvaccinated. The delegation was inoculated with the AstraZeneca jab under its country’s vaccine roll-out, and the WHO has not recommended it for those aged under 18.
Despite the risks, the IOC is absolving itself of any responsibility should an athlete contract the virus. All athletes must sign a waiver – said to be typical for major sports events – but with wording that releases organisers from any Covid-19 liability.
Certain sports could also be at a greater risk of Covid-19 infection, especially close-contact indoor sports such as fencing, boxing and wrestling, according to Lisa Brosseau, a respiratory-protection research consultant for the University of Minnesota’s Centre for Infectious Disease Research and Policy.Any sport that takes place outdoors with no close contact, such as archery, golf and surfing, are at low risk. Current safety measures also do not recognise the exposure to human-generated aerosols, or small particles, in indoor spaces, said Brosseau. In shared spaces and in proximity to others, Brosseau warned the current safety measures are not effective.
“Masks are not effective at limiting the emission or inhalation of small infectious particles generated during breathing or talking,” said Brosseau. “I believe transport will occur in small buses. I am concerned about the bus driver who will have the highest exposure – meeting many people in a day.”
Furthermore, not all staff, volunteers and members of the media would be fully vaccinated during the Games, said Toresdahl. The IOC said 70 to 80 per cent of the media representatives would be vaccinated while all 70,000 volunteers were expected to be inoculated.
“While the available vaccines are very effective, Covid-19 infections can still occur,” said Toresdahl.
Lim from Singapore said extra precautions athletes must take at the Games may also lower their protection levels. “Another risk is the impact that travelling, time zone differences and competition stress have on the immune system. That may lower the resistance to counter the effects of the Covid-19 virus,” said Lim, though he said there was insufficient data to fully understand its risks.
McCloskey, the independent health adviser to the IOC, however, said there was little evidence to suggest the coronavirus could be spread at a sporting event. “We had positive cases at the tennis and football tournaments, but those happened from people being infected at home, not during the field of play,” he said.Even before vaccines were widely available, many indoor contact sporting events were held with minimal Covid-19 transmission when testing and prevention measures were implemented, said Toresdahl.
“As the pandemic continues and sporting events resume, event organisers and medical staff are learning more about how to minimise the risk of Covid-19 to an acceptable level,” said Toresdahl. -
Well totally agreed by the suggestions given that there is not much point to discuss about the cancellation of the Tokyo Olympics now. Anyway there is still no confirmation from IOC yet. Just need to wait till July and then the truth will be revealed by then.
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https://edition.cnn.com/2021/05/19/sport/tokyo-olympics-possible-cancellation-spt-intl/index.html
(CNN)With a little over two months until the start of the Tokyo Olympics, the possibility of a cancellation looms large over the Games.
As Japan battles a fourth wave of coronavirus infections and a state of emergency in Tokyo and other prefectures remains in place until the end of the month, there is mounting pressure from health experts, business leaders and the Japanese public to call off the Games.
Last week, the Tokyo Medical Practitioners Association, an organization of about 6,000 doctors in Tokyo, penned a letter calling for a cancellation, while a petition which garnered 350,000 signatures in nine days in support of a cancellation has been submitted to organizers.
Also last week, the CEO of leading Japanese e-commerce company Rakuten said that holding the Games amid the pandemic amounts to a "suicide mission" -- among the strongest opposition so far voiced by a business leader.
However, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has remained adamant that the Olympics, already postponed by a year amid the pandemic, will be able to get underway on July 23.
Organizers have released a playbook, the final version of which is expected next month, outlining a series of countermeasures that they say will ensure the Games can take place in a safe and secure way, even as thousands of athletes from around the world descend on Tokyo.
With the Winter Olympics in Beijing now less than a year away, officials have also said that the Games won't be postponed again and that a cancellation would be the likeliest option if it's deemed unsafe to hold the Games from the rescheduled start date in July.
How would a cancellation come about?
In the host city contract which outlines the legal agreement between the IOC and Tokyo to hosting the Games, the IOC is entitled to terminate the contract on the grounds that "the safety of participants in the Games would be seriously threatened or jeopardized for any reason whatsoever."
According to legal expert Jack Anderson, it's likely to be growing pressure on the organizers that forces a cancellation -- a "political decision," rather than a strictly legal one.
"It's the safety of those athletes, which are a primary concern of the IOC, the safety of the Japanese public, the primary concern of the organizing committee and the Japanese political establishment, which is the key," Anderson, a professor of Law teaching at Melbourne Law School in Australia, tells CNN Sport.
"And this is not an ordinary one-off event. It is obviously a huge multidisciplinary event across many different stadia."
Anderson adds that a termination of the host city contract would see the risks and losses fall largely with the organizing committee, which is mandated to take out insurance for the Games.
"In that way, it's straightforward," he says. "But of course, in other ways it's not straightforward because it's not simply a contract between the International Olympic Committee and the host organizing.
"We have sponsorship contracts, we have broadcasting, we have hospitality, we have a range -- a contractual web of liabilities -- that are in place here. It's a huge contractual issue and would have huge insurance ramifications if it were to not go ahead."
According to a Reuters report from January, insurers are facing a $2-3 billion loss if the Olympics are canceled, amounting to the largest ever claim in the global event cancellation market.
And for organizers, the financial impact of canceling the Games, even with insurance payouts, could be considerable given that close to 75% of the IOC's total funding comes from broadcasting rights.
"The International Olympic Committee -- while it is now a very rich organization -- its wealth is predicated on its primary asset, which is hosting the Games," Anderson explains.
"Therefore, not to have a Games, and the knock-on effect that that has for sponsorship, for broadcasting, would be huge. It would be difficult to measure that.But I think you could comfortably say that insurance alone would not cover it in terms of reputation and economic damage."
What about the athletes?
Arguably, it would be the athletes who miss out most from a canceled Olympics.
Speaking to CNN Sport last week, World Athletics president Seb Coe said that 70% of those chasing Olympic participation are only going to have one chance to compete at what is likely to be the pinnacle of their sporting careers.
To cancel the Games, Coe said, would be to "discard a generation of athletes who have spent over half their young lives in pursuit of this one moment."
The other issue when it comes to athletes is that countries around the world are at different stages of pandemic recovery and have varying access to vaccines, although Coe said he thinks "the bulk of the world will be at the Games."
With public pressure to cancel the Games mounting, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said last week that he has "never put (the) Olympics" as a priority.
"My priority has been to protect the lives and health of the Japanese population. We must first prevent the spread of the virus," he said.
The Olympics have been canceled on three previous occasions: in 1916, 1940 and 1944, each time because of world wars.
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Tokyo doctors call for cancellation of Olympic Games due to COVID-19
A top medical organisation has thrown its weight behind calls to cancel the Tokyo Olympics saying hospitals are already overwhelmed as the country battles a spike in coronavirus infections less than three months from the start of the Games.The Tokyo Medical Practitioners Association representing about 6,000 primary care doctors said hospitals in the Games host city "have their hands full and have almost no spare capacity" amid a surge in infections.
"We strongly request that the authorities convince the IOC (International Olympic Committee) that holding the Olympics is difficult and obtain its decision to cancel the Games," the association said in a May 14 open letter to Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga which was posted to its website on Monday.
A jump in infections has stoked alarm amid a shortage of medical staff and hospital beds in some areas of the Japanese capital, promoting the government to extend a third state of emergency in Tokyo and several other prefectures until May 31.
Doctors would soon face the added difficulty of dealing with heat exhaustion patients during the summer months and if the Olympics contributed to a rise in deaths "Japan will bear the maximum responsibility", it added.
Other health experts and medical groups have voiced their concerns about the Olympics, while an online petition calling for the Games to be cancelled was signed by hundreds of thousands of people.
Overall, Japan has avoided an explosive spread of the virus experienced by other nations, but the government has come under sharp criticism for its sluggish vaccination roll-out.
Only about 3.5% of its population of about 126 million has been vaccinated, according to a Reuters tracker.
Underscoring the challenges with the vaccinations, booking systems for mass inoculation sites being launched in Tokyo and Osaka - which started accepting bookings on Monday - were marred by technical glitches.
Still, Suga says Japan can host "a safe and secure Olympics" while following appropriate COVID-19 containment measures.
Preparations for the July 23-Aug. 8 Games are progressing under tight COVID-19 protocols, such as an athletics test event featuring 420 athletes in early May.
But multiple pre-Olympic training camps, including one for the United States' track and field team have been cancelled, and athletes have voiced concerns about the Games taking place in the midst of a global pandemic.
Canadian equastrian athlete and gold medalist Eric Lamaze announced on Monday that he had pulled out of being an Olympic candidate, citing personal health concerns. He has been treated for a brain tumor over the past three years.
"My health is something that I take very seriously, and I've decided that Tokyo is not the best venue for me," Lamaze said in the statement.
"The Olympics are a celebration of the athletes and I don't think we're going to have a true celebration in Tokyo," he added. "It's not the time to celebrate."
The Games have already been postponed once due to the pandemic.
With cases surging across much of Asia, the World Economic Forum on Monday cancelled its annual meeting of the global elite due to be held in Singapore in August.
Under the state of emergency in parts of Japan, bars, restaurants, karaoke parlours and other places serving alcohol will remain closed, although large commercial facilities can re-open under shorter hours. Hard-hit Tokyo and Osaka will continue to keep these larger facilities closed.
The number of COVID-19 cases nationwide dropped to 3,680 on Monday, the lowest level since April 26, according to public broadcaster NHK, but the number of heavy infections hit a record high of 1,235, the health ministry said on Tuesday.
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Alright we have so many sports events cancelled due to the covid or virus. Now everything seems to be hanging in the air with nothing said. Even IOC themselves also dare not confirm this. Will the Tokyo Olympics be cancelled? I think by now the answer is already too obvious. There is no way out of it. Cases are soaring very high in all the various different countries around the whole world. I guess IOC may be left with no other options but to cancel Tokyo Olympics.
Question here is simple.
Athletes life is more important or participating in Tokyo Olympics is more important?
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On 11/05/2021 at 13:57, Fly_like_a_don said:
Btw we even surpassed 413,000 cases
This is getting so serious for sure.
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https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2021/04/india-covid-19-crisis/618691/
Why the World Should Worry About India
The world’s largest vaccine producer is struggling to overcome its latest COVID-19 surge—and that’s everyone’s problem.India considered itself to be “in the endgame” of the pandemic just a few weeks ago. Now it is the global epicenter. The country recently surpassed the devastating milestone of more than 345,000 new COVID-19 cases in a single day, the biggest total recorded globally since the pandemic began.
What is taking place in India isn’t so much a wave as it is a wall: Charts showing the country’s infection rate and death toll, which has also reached record numbers in the country, depict curves that have shot up into vertical lines. Public-health experts aren’t optimistic that they will slope down anytime soon.
India’s outbreak is an enormous tragedy for its own people, but it’s also a catastrophe for the rest of the world. Ninety-two developing nations rely on India, home to the Serum Institute, the world’s largest vaccine maker, for the doses to protect their own populations, a supply now constrained by India’s domestic obligations. Meanwhile, the coronavirus is mutating. Reports of double- and even triple-mutant strains of the virus, which experts fear could be driving the country’s latest surge, have prompted concerns that what has started in India won’t end there. Despite efforts to restrict the spread of India’s new COVID-19 variant, called B.1.617, it has already been identified in at least 10 countries, including the United States and Britain.
If ever there were a time for intervention, it would be now. But world leaders, who have so far only paid lip service to the need for global cooperation, have mostly been preoccupied by their own internal situations. Although this approach may have served vaccine-rich countries such as the U.S. so far, India could prove its limits.How did India, which merely a month ago thought it had seen the worst of the pandemic, get to this point? Michael Kugelman, the deputy director of the Asia program at the Washington, D.C.–based Wilson Center, told me the answer comes down to a “perfect storm” of factors that includes new and existing variants (and a lack of robust genomic sequencing to track them), a continuous stream of widely attended political rallies and religious gatherings (with no social distancing or mask wearing), and a general complacency on the part of the Indian government, which was slow to respond to a crisis in which it had prematurely claimed victory.
The result has been overwhelmed hospitals, depleted oxygen supplies, morgues that have run out of space, and crematoria that are melting from near-constant use. The country surpassed 2,000 deaths a day last week—and those are just the cases that have been recorded. This time next month, that figure could rise to as high as 4,500 daily deaths, Bhramar Mukherjee, a biostatician and epidemiologist at the University of Michigan who is tracking the situation in India, told me. Others warn that it could get as high as 5,500. Though the projections vary, the conclusions are largely the same. “All the arrows are pointing to real darkness,” Mukherjee said.
The situation has become so dire that the Pune-based Serum Institute, the manufacturer of the AstraZeneca vaccine and a major contributor to the COVAX initiative to provide doses to low- and middle-income countries, said it will not be able to meet its international commitments amid India’s domestic shortage. Once considered the pharmacy of the world, India is now being forced to import doses.
None of the Indian government’s missteps absolve the world from caring about what happens to the country, nor should they. Beyond the obvious moral reasons are practical ones too. As I have repeatedly written before, uncontrolled outbreaks anywhere pose a threat everywhere, including vaccine-rich countries such as the United States. Perhaps the biggest concern right now, in India and elsewhere, is the threat posed by more transmissible variants and their potential ability to overcome vaccine immunity. Though virtually every known variant, including those from Britain, Brazil, and South Africa, has been identified in India, in some states the Indian strain has become the most prevalent.
“It’s very similar to what we saw in Manaus,” Christina Pagel, the director of clinical operational research at University College London, told me, referring to the badly hit Brazilian city. She noted that “it’s not a coincidence that these variants are arising in populations that have developed immunity through infection.”
Read: The Brazil variant is exposing the world’s vulnerability
Then there’s the issue of vaccine supply. India’s role as a major pharmaceutical producer has been spotlighted during the pandemic; it has provided 20 percent of the world’s generic drugs as well as more than 60 percent of the world’s vaccines, despite having inoculated just 1 percent of its own population against COVID-19.* The country has the capacity to manufacture 70 million doses a month, but even with all of those doses directed toward its domestic needs, they’re not enough to meet the overwhelming demand. At present, India is administering some 3 million doses a day. To protect its population of 1.4 billion, Mukherjee said that rate would need to increase threefold.
Donating doses directly to countries that need them, including India, is a nonstarter for many countries. Most of those that have vaccines don’t have enough of them, and those with an immense surplus, such as the United States, aren’t yet confident enough in their supply to part with the excess.
But these countries can help in other ways. The first is by lifting export controls on the raw materials that are used to produce vaccines. This is what the CEO of the Serum Institute asked of the Biden administration weeks ago. On Sunday, the U.S. government heeded the request, announcing that it would look to immediately provide the raw materials necessary to help India produce the AstraZeneca vaccine, locally known as Covishield, as well as other medical supplies. The British and German governments also pledged their support.
Another option is for countries to support the appeal, put forward by India and South Africa, for the World Trade Organization to temporarily relax patent rights related to COVID-19 vaccines and treatments so that they can be manufactured, without fear of being sued, by countries that are still struggling to inoculate their populations. More than 70 former world leaders and 100 Nobel Prize laureates have appealed to the Biden administration to back the waiver, as have several U.S. lawmakers. “If we want to restore America’s global leadership in the post-Trump era, we should help other countries access the technical know-how they need to manufacture their own vaccines to fight COVID-19,” Senator Chris Murphy, one of the 10 Democratic senators who have called on the Biden administration to back the effort, told me in a statement. “It’s an easy, effective way for the United States to help.”
There is a host of other ways for countries to help, irrespective of their resources. Assisting India with its sequencing is one option. Donating the oxygen the country so desperately needs is another.
Though mass vaccination has provided an off-ramp from the pandemic for some countries, India is a stark reminder that, for many others, a long road lies ahead. The world is on track to record more COVID-19 deaths this year than it did in 2020. The risks of allowing current outbreaks to ravage places such as India aren’t limited to those countries alone. Emerging variants and further delays to more equitable vaccine distribution stand to affect everyone, including vaccinated populations. India’s problem is the world’s problem.
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9 hours ago, George_D said:
could the Olympics be held with no spectators?
This is a good question. Somehow it is too costly to hold Olympics with totally no spectators.
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1 minute ago, De_Gambassi said:
Don't know how posting articles from weeks or months ago is of any help ?...
Anyway, for the games to be cancelled, someone must have an interest to cancel them. The IOC, the organizing committee, the Japanese state, the world of sport at large, TV they all need the game to happen whatever the difficulties might be.
It's gonna be ugly, it will be very unfair for many athletes (see boxers as an early example), but Tokyo 2020 will happen.I understand your point of view. Well said. Somehow we will have to wait for IOC to come up with a wise decision.
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Excerpt from the article
Sources at the International Olympic Committee have also told the Guardian that they are still planning for a “full Games” in July, despite the spiralling number of Covid-19 cases in Japan and across the globe. They also dismissed a Times report that said that government officials had resigned themselves to cancelling the Olympics and were instead hoping a wave of sympathy would help Tokyo secure the 2032 Games.
“No one wants to be the first to say so but the consensus is that it’s too difficult,” the Times quoted an unnamed senior member of Japan’s ruling coalition as saying. “Personally, I don’t think it’s going to happen.”The source added: “[The prime minister Yoshihide] Suga is not emotionally invested in the Games. But they want to show that they are ready to go, so that they will get another chance in 11 years. In these circumstances, no one could really object to that.”
However, doubts still remain about whether the Olympics and Paralympics, which are expected to have 15,000 participants, can go ahead given the rising number of coronavirus cases in Tokyo.
However Bach’s optimism was criticised as “ignoring reality” by the leading sports marketer Robert Maes, whose experience after working with 30 national Olympic committees and five global sponsors made him deeply sceptical.
“I cannot see how the Olympics can be held in the current climate,” he said. “In Japan, we have an explosive rise of the virus cases and the seriousness of them and because of the lack of tests the true numbers are surely underreported. A vast majority of the public is saying they don’t want the Olympics. Test events need to be cancelled. Many of the people I speak to are increasingly sceptical. They won’t say that publicly but it’s true.
“There is also total silence here from all the sponsors. No activation, no servicing, because if they come out to be visible in support, they might get a huge backlash if it all goes wrong in July.”
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3 minutes ago, dharang said:
Common sense would say just let it go (that is, cancel it).
But in one hand, big time political and business interests are in play, both by the IOC, the JP government, the big TV networks, and so on.
On the other hand, it might be devastating for the athletes, some of whom might not be able to participate in the next Olympics (2024) or they will not be in a form needed for a medal or top-6 finish. The large scale boycotts of 1980 and 1984 have a lot of these personal stories.
Of course it is different to miss the OG for a once-in-a-century pandemic and a political decision.
My money is either on an Olympics with no spectators, or a cancellation in the last possible minute (say late March or so), after every alternative approach is exhausted or discarded as not viable (IOC and local organizers will deny the cancellation as long as possible, the same way they denied the postponement last year)Totally agreed with what you have said.
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https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2021/01/24/national/tokyo-olympics-cancel-delay-survey/
70% of Japanese want Tokyo Games to be canceled or delayed
Over 70% of people in Japan think that this summer’s Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics should be canceled or postponed again, a think tank survey showed Saturday.
The survey by the Japan Press Research Institute showed that 37.9% of respondents said the Tokyo Games should be canceled while 34% said the events should be postponed again.
The proportion of respondents who said the events should take place as scheduled stood at 26.1%. The Tokyo Games were already postponed by one year from summer 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Of those who opposed holding the games this summer, 83.4% said the events would bring many people to Japan from around the world, leading to a further spread of the virus, while 64.3% said there is no prospect of the pandemic being contained.
Of those who favored holding the games as scheduled, 67.3% noted that athletes have been preparing for the events and 49.3% said people would be encouraged by athletes’ performances and the excitement brought by the games.
The poll showed that 44.8% said that if the games are canceled or postponed again, preparations made so far, including the construction of sporting venues, would end up being a waste of resources.
The poll was conducted between Oct. 30 and Nov. 17, collecting answers from some 3,000 people aged 18 or older.
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https://www.bbc.com/sport/olympics/52747797
IOC's Thomas Bach accepts Tokyo Olympics would have to be cancelled if not held in 2021
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Will Tokyo Olympics be cancelled? Or will it be held?
Covid cases are so high on daily basis. Athletes health will also be in danger as covid can spread very fast too.
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The danger is always there. Once an athletes have been tested as positive covid they must not be allowed to continue playing in tournaments. At the same time players from the same country and team in the tournament are all also very dangerous despite tested negative because this virus have an incubation period of 14 days. They may not be showing the symptoms now but in within 14 days they could be positive covid. By allowing players from the team with positive covid players is just like asking for more trouble because virus could spread on to other players from other countries. So it is very dangerous here. So if coaches or players from the team have been found to be positive covid, the rest of the other players from the same team must not be allowed to play on for the safety of the players from other countries. Yes of course during tournament time it is certainly not nice to see so many walkovers and players not playing.
Question:
1. Should players who have close contacts with positive covid team mates be allowed to play on in order to avoid walkover?
2. Should we allow players who are positive covid to play on and ignore the safely of the other players?
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