Tokyo Olympics – The Spectator Question
With less than five months until the start of the Tokyo Olympics, Japan still faces many unanswered questions about how to hold the world’s biggest sporting event amid the coronavirus pandemic.
On Friday 5 March, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga announced Japan’s second state of emergency should be extended by around two weeks for the greater Tokyo metropolitan area following the continued increase in reported new Covid-19 cases.
It is clear that holding the Olympics needs two conditions, one: controlling COVID-19 in Japan and two controlling COVID-19 everywhere, because you have to invite the athletes and the spectators from all over the world,
Though the Japanese government and the International Olympic Committee remain adamant that the Olympics and Paralympics will be staged following their one-year postponement, it is still unclear whether spectators will be admitted. Currently, Japan’s current border Covid-19 control restrictions bar non-resident foreigners from entering the country unless they have ‘special exceptional circumstances.’
While the pandemic shows no signs of abating in the Tokyo metropolitan area, organizers have little time left to make a call on spectators because of the need to finalize planning for tickets, logistics and immigration procedures. The heads of the Tokyo Games’ organizing bodies agreed recently to decide by the end of March whether to allow overseas spectators. The organizers will then make a call in April on how many spectators will be allowed into the venues.
With most of the world still struggling to deal with the health crisis and more contagious variants of the virus spreading or yet to emerge, Japan may not have many answers for the spectator question, with medical experts saying it is unrealistic to expect full capacity crowds in the stands this summer.
Kentaro Iwata, a professor of infectious diseases at Kobe University, said the “most reasonable decision” is to hold the games without spectators, adding that “other options are not right from a medical standpoint.” … “Since the Olympics are a global event, it is more important to consider the situation of infections around the world rather than just looking at the situation in Japan,”.
Although more than 10,000 athletes will be permitted to go to venues and a few other locations, and will be tested at least every four days, the same strict measures are not planned to apply to the larger number of spectators from foreign countries should they be allowed to travel to Japan.
Under an interim report released in December by a government-led panel in charge of creating COVID-19 countermeasures for the Olympics, overseas visitors will be required to download a contact-tracing app. But they will be free to use public transport and will be exempt from a 14-day quarantine requirement if they are from countries with relatively few virus cases. Before the postponement, it was estimated the Olympics would draw about 7.8 million spectators and the Paralympics about 2.3 million.
Another option being discussed is only allowing people living in Japan to attend, but even that involves people from around the country traveling to and from Tokyo, the region hardest hit by the virus.
The remorseless campaign of fear to which the Japanese people have been subjected since the pandemic started refuses to let up and may pose a bigger threat to the Olympics than the virus itself.
