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It’s evening on the streets of Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan, when the Olympic torch burns out. A viral video reveals the torchbearer slowly jogging previous the spectators alongside the road. Then, because the flame goes by, a lady within the crowd shoots a water pistol.
“Put out the Olympic flame! Face the Tokyo Olympics! ”She screams. Safety is racing round them.
That is the backdrop for the upcoming Olympic and Paralympic Video games as a consequence of start in Tokyo on July 23 – the place Covid-19 instances are on the rise, inflicting the town to declare its fourth state of emergency for the reason that pandemic started. The rise within the variety of instances is especially worrying because the nation’s vaccination price stays low. Solely 18% of the Japanese inhabitants are totally vaccinated.
Nonetheless, the Worldwide Olympic Committee continues. Billions of {dollars} in sunken prices are at stake – the Tokyo Olympic Stadium alone value $ 1.four billion – and billions extra in potential income for the IOC, Japan, native organizers and broadcasters.
A worldwide well being disaster that’s removed from over, an unbelievable amount of cash and a authorities that’s paying off: the forces clashing in Tokyo are unprecedented. And even with strict new guidelines for the video games, specialists concern that Covid-19 may worsen in Japan.
Shield athletes
Almost 100,000 athletes, employees and members of the family and others are anticipated to journey to Japan for the Olympic and Paralympic Video games, and organizers are claiming to do their greatest to guard them.
Brian McCloskey, chairman of an unbiased physique advising the IOC on Covid-19 containment measures for Tokyo, acknowledges the considerations. To cut back the danger of the virus spreading, athletes, employees and others are carefully monitored, he says.
“The objective is to don’t have any coronavirus in Tokyo,” says McCloskey. “The intention is to forestall these particular person instances from turning into clusters and spreading occasions.”
Athletes, employees and officers are examined at varied intervals throughout the video games. For instance, the residents of the Olympic Village are examined day by day, whereas the Japanese staff who’re in shut contact with athletes are examined extra incessantly than the visitors drivers. McCloskey says the Olympic Village is utilizing a contact tracing system to comprise any instances that come up. Everybody getting into Japan should obtain a contact monitoring app, and athletes and media shops are requested to allow GPS monitoring on their telephones. The organizers say location knowledge is just used when there are Covid instances.
The nearer the video games acquired, the stricter the measures grew to become. Viewers from different international locations have been banned months in the past, and it was introduced earlier this month that there might be no viewers in any respect at venues in and round Tokyo.
McCloskey says there’s a precedent for holding the Video games amid a public well being menace – even when earlier Video games haven’t been on the order of Covid. When advising the IOC on the London 2012 Olympics, organizers thought-about the potential for a SARS pandemic, he says. And earlier than the 2016 Video games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, there have been considerations about Zika (WHO later stated no instances had been reported in athletes or spectators).
For Tokyo, the IOC has printed a number of “playbooks” with directions for athletes, employees, volunteers and the press.
However regardless of strict guidelines, the video games will inevitably result in individuals mixing and interacting in ways in which in any other case would not occur.
“It is not simply the occasion itself,” stated Linsey Marr, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Tech who’s a number one knowledgeable on airborne virus transmission. “It is every little thing else that has to do with the occasion: the lodges, the eating places, the technique of transport.”
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