Potential for cancellation of Tokyo 2020

[Vagabond]

Here’s the tentative timeline of Japan’s Covid-19 vaccination programme – UPDATED September 21

The current status of Japan’s Covid-19 vaccine rollout and a projected timeline of what’s to come

tinyurl.com

July: Treatment for the general public begins. All residents age 16 and older, including foreign residents, are eligible for the free vaccine. The government does not recommend children to be vaccinated at this time due to potential risks and allergic reactions.

September: According to The Japan Times, vaccine chief Taro Kono says Japan will secure enough vaccines to inoculate all residents aged 16 and older by the end of September.

2024 Paris Summer Olympics Schedule, Dates, Calendar of All Events

The first Olympic competitions will take on July 21, which must be well before most people in Tokyo are fully immunized.

 

[Sylvia]

Associated Press' Stephen Wade tweets more (#1 & #3 in a series of 6): https://twitter.com/StephenWadeAP/status/1392659138719539202

1 People keep asking what it would take to stop Tokyo Olympics from happening. Would have to be apocalyptic; mortuaries or crematories overflowing, cadavers in hospital hallways in Tokyo. Zero sign this is near. Otherwise, no turning back that I can see. Games open in 10 weeks. [...]
3 Overwhelming public opposition in polls. But Sunday a protest attracted 100 people at National Stadium. Clear anger partly tied to perception that Olympics priority ahead of public health. Only 1% Japanese fully vaccinated. Now we see athletes here to get shots ahead of public.

Johnny Weir tweeted today: https://twitter.com/JohnnyGWeir/status/1392553603332706312

In the midst of our big internal seminar to prepare for Tokyo and I’m so excited. The NBC Family has big, exceptional and most importantly, safe plans, and I hope you will enjoy our coverage as well as the tremendous stories we have the privilege to tell.
@NBCOlympics @Tokyo2020

 

[barbk]

Copying out the tweets in this thread by the Associated Press' sports writer Stephen Wade: https://twitter.com/StephenWadeAP/status/1391626625393909761

1 To understand the Olympics, understand this. The International Olympic Committee is a sports business. Like NFL, NBA, it lives off selling broadcast rights. This is source of almost 75% of income. Another 18% from sponsors. It has two major events: Summer and Winter Olympics.
2 No Olympics. Little income. For this reason, it needs the Tokyo Olympics to happen, even if just for TV with zero fans. The cost for pulling this off falls almost entirely on Japan. The official cost for Tokyo Olympics is $15.4. Estimates suggest it might be twice that.
3 All but $6.7 billion is public money. Overall contribution by IOC is about $1.5 billion. Japanese pick up bills for most things including finding 10,000 medical workers to staff games. Unclear who pays bills if athletes or staff fall ill. Believe athletes need to sign waivers.
4 IOC has not-for-profit status in Switzerland. It says it distributes 90% of income back to sports bodies, who then dole out. Just finished a new headquarters at cost of $150 million. About 40% of all IOC income is from US network NBC. IOC and NBC in reality operate as partners.
5 All the contortions to hold Tokyo are driven by TV, like most sports businesses. Before all the commercialization, these Olympics would have simply been canceled. That is not possible now. To disguise this fact, IOC says the games are needed for the athletes. For global good.

In 1984 the Olympics were held in LA, and my office building at UCLA was taken over by the IOC as a headquarters for the games. A more snotty, entitled group of people would be very, very hard to find. It was way more about their demands for luxury, bowing and scraping than it was about athletes or competition.

 

[Sylvia]

Phil Hersh's editorial, published by his former paper, Chicago Tribune (May 12):

Op-ed: Holding the Tokyo Summer Olympics during COVID will showcase the IOC’s arrogance

As of Wednesday, there were 3.3 million deaths worldwide attributed to COVID-19. Yet Japanese organizers and the International Olympic Committee continue to set tables for a July global party that …

tinyurl.com

Excerpt from the end:

Cancellation would be a wrenching experience for the athletes who plan their lives around the four-year Olympic cycle. Only the truly heartless would feel no sympathy for them if the plug is pulled.
But think of how many joyous events have been stripped from the world in the past 14 months: graduations, weddings, grandparents kept from seeing new grandchildren, families separated at holidays — all in the interest of public health.
Even those are of little consequence in the big picture. People without jobs. People who may suffer for years after having contracted the virus. People who have had to mourn lost family members and friends from a distance. People who have died alone because it wasn’t safe to be near them. People being cremated round the clock in Delhi after having died of COVID-19.
I have seen how special the Olympics can be, what joy the games can bring to participants and chroniclers and spectators. I have seen the Olympics carry the torch for our better angels.

It says in the Olympic Charter, as part of the “Fundamental Principles of Olympism,” that one of those principles is social responsibility.
Trying to have the Olympics this summer seems more like a deal with the devil. It would be selling what little remains of the ideals that once were the Olympics’ soul.

 

[mjb52]

To me, it feels like Phil Hersh wants events to be cancelled as an end in and of itself rather than because it accomplishes something. He argued against holding Worlds and the International Team Trophy. Both events appear to have been successful. Following ITT, there was an apparently successful tour of Stars on Ice Japan as well.

Sports have been going on all year long. It's clear that it can be done. Why is it so important to him that it not be?

 

[Vagabond]

I posted a link to this article in PI, but I will post it here as well because it bears on whether it would be safe to proceed with staging the Summer Olympics.

World’s Most Vaccinated Nation Is Spooked by Covid Spike (Published 2021)

Seychelles has seen a surge in coronavirus cases even though much of its population was inoculated with China’s Sinopharm vaccine.

tinyurl.com

In brief, there has been an outbreaks in the Seychelles, which has the highest vaccination rate in the world. The people there received one of the Chinese vaccines, which have lower efficacy rates than the ones available in the United States, for example.

Many athletes going to Japan will have received these lower-efficacy vaccines, which China has offered to all athletes going to both this year's Olympics and to Beijing 2022. This means that they may be more vulnerable to infections and more likely to be carriers than athletes who have received the higher-efficacy vaccines such as Pfzer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson.

That isn't to say that the Games should be necessarily be canceled, but this is an issue that must be addressed now, before anyone heads off to Tokyo.

 

[Karen-W]

I posted a link to this article in PI, but I will post it here as well because it bears on whether it would be safe to proceed with staging the Summer Olympics.

World’s Most Vaccinated Nation Is Spooked by Covid Spike (Published 2021)

Seychelles has seen a surge in coronavirus cases even though much of its population was inoculated with China’s Sinopharm vaccine.

tinyurl.com

In brief, there has been an outbreaks in the Seychelles, which has the highest vaccination rate in the world. The people there received one of the Chinese vaccines, which have lower efficacy rates than the ones available in the United States, for example.

Many athletes going to Japan will have received these lower-efficacy vaccines, which China has offered to all athletes going to both this year's Olympics and to Beijing 2022. This means that they may be more vulnerable to infections and more likely to be carriers than athletes who have received the higher-efficacy vaccines such as Pfzer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson.

That isn't to say that the Games should be necessarily be canceled, but this is an issue that must be addressed now, before anyone heads off to Tokyo.

I thought China offered and the Tokyo organizing committee essentially passed - they didn't outright say no but they weren't jumping all over it. And, now, the IOC has an agreement with Pfizer, don't they?

I'm more concerned about the Winter Olympics in Beijing than I am about the Tokyo Games this summer, when it comes to being a potential super-spreader event, given that China will probably be pushing the Sinovac vaccine - hopefully it won't be since most of the countries that participate in the Winter Olympics are going to have good/strong access to the higher-efficacy vaccines and will be able to get their athletes and officials vaccinated with those by next winter.

 

[Vagabond]

Pfizer and BioNTech are dedicating vaccines, but I suspect that a lot of athletes from developing nations have already been vaccinated with Sinovax or even the Russian vaccine. The Seychellois athletes (a small number, to be sure) almost certainly have been.

 

[mjb52]

If we are going to wait until everything is perfect and there is never an outbreak anywhere in the world at any time then we will be living in this dystopian nightmare forever. Not for two more weeks. Not for two more years. Forever. If that's ok with you, that's certainly your prerogative. It's not ok with me.

 

[bladesofgorey]

Nice strawman. Nobody is asking for perfection, they are asking that the population in Japan that this Olympics will directly affect not be put at unnecessarily hight risk for a sports extravaganza. With such a low vaccination rate so far it feels reckless to me but then my friend/neighbor just came back from India where he flew to try and help his father who was dying of COVID access medical help and I guess hearing stories of people crawling through packed ICUs screaming for help and bodies/the dying scattered outside overflowing hospitals while oxygen runs out of every last tank might make me risk averse.

 

[mjb52]

That's very sad. It didn't happen because they had the Olympics in India, unless I really missed something. These failed policies didn't prevent what happened in India or anywhere else in the world. It is time to figure something else out. And where I am the absolute worst that our situation got was under these restrictions. Since the restrictions have been lifted more and more, things have gotten better and better and that started well before vaccination kicked in. There is no apparent connection between the restrictions and the spread or lack of the spread of the virus at all. Japan has managed to hold events successfully with safety precautions. If they have done it in the past, there is no reason to think they can't do it in the future.

 

[bladesofgorey]

Since the restrictions have been lifted more and more, things have gotten better and better and that started well before vaccination kicked in. There is no apparent connection between the restrictions and the spread or lack of the spread of the ***** at all.

You have got to be frigging kidding me with this. I'm out.

 

[missing]

Someone (other than Philip Hersh) is concerned about the Olympics going ahead.

The CEO of Japan's top e-commerce company said Friday that it would be a "suicide mission" for the country to host the Olympic Games this summer.

The comments by Rakuten (RKUNF) CEO Hiroshi Mikitani in an exclusive interview with CNN Business are among the strongest yet from corporate leaders worried about holding the event as the country remains gripped by the coronavirus pandemic.

In the interview, Mikitani said that he had been trying to convince the government to cancel the Tokyo games, which are scheduled to begin on July 23. He also gave the Japanese government a score of "two out of 10" for its handling of the pandemic. Other prominent Japanese executives have voiced their worries over this year's Olympics, but none has been as critical as Mikitani.

"It's dangerous to host the big international event from all over the world. So, the risk is too big," Mikitani told CNN Business. "The upside is not that great, and we see many countries are still struggling so much, including India and Brazil. And it's not time to celebrate yet," he added.

When asked if he believed the Olympics could yet be canceled, he said "everything is possible right now," and that he thought it would be "difficult" to make the games safe.

The article also includes quotations expressing concern from Toyota and the fact that the US track and field team has canceled its pre-Olympic training camp in Japan.

 

[Aceon6]

The article also includes quotations expressing concern from Toyota and the fact that the US track and field team has canceled its pre-Olympic training camp in Japan.

To be honest, USATF moved the camp because most US athletes will be fully vaxxed and they wanted a camp with minimal restrictions for those who are.

 

[Sylvia]

Not forgetting most importantly Midori Ito who ran in Nagano where in 1998 she lit the Olympic cauldron: https://english.kyodonews.net/news/...s-tokyo-olympics-torch-relay---april-110.html

I just found this April 1, 2021 article with another photo of Midori Ito:

伊藤みどりさん再び長野県で聖火灯す「あしたの光になってくれたら」荻原健司さんも/デイリースポーツ online

東京五輪の聖火リレーは１日、長野県での１日目が行われた。第７区間は善光寺本堂、長野オリンピックメモリアルパークを通過した。到着イベントは長野市役所前で、無観客で行われた。　１日目の最終ランナーはフィギュアスケート女子で９２年アルベールビル五...

www.daily.co.jp

The Tokyo Olympic torch relay was held on the 1st, the first day in Nagano prefecture. The 7th section passed through the Zenkoji main hall and the Nagano Olympic Memorial Park. The arrival event was held in front of Nagano City Hall with no spectators.
The final runner on the first day was a figure skating woman, Midori Ito (51), a silver medalist at the 1992 Winter Olympics, who lit the torch. "I'm going to have muscle pain tomorrow," she said, but she smiled, "I'm relieved to be able to ignite everyone's thoughts in Nagano safely."
Ms. Ito is the final igniter of the torch relay at the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics. "I saw the torch as a player, the torch that ignites everyone's thoughts, and this time I was allowed to put it out as a runner," she said. I ran asking for help."

Photo caption says "Midori Ito, who served as the last runner in Nagano Prefecture and transferred the torch to the torch plate = Nagano City on the night of the 1st": https://www.daily.co.jp/general/2021/04/01/0014204267.shtml?ph=1

 

[missing]

In a poll taken this weekend, more than 80% of the Japanese want the Olympics canceled or postponed. Only 14% support holding the Olympics as scheduled.

The weekend survey by the Asahi Shimbun daily found that 43 per cent of respondents want the Games cancelled, and 40 per cent want a further postponement.

Those figures are up from 35 per cent who backed cancellation in a survey by the paper a month ago, and 34 per cent who wanted a further delay.

Only 14 per cent support holding the Games this summer as scheduled, down from 28 per cent, according to the poll of 1,527 replies from 3,191 telephone calls.

If the Games do go ahead, 59 per cent of respondents said they want no spectators, with 33 per cent backing lower fan numbers and 3 per cent a regular capacity Games.

 

[Sylvia]

395 apply for 200 Tokyo Games sports doctor slots

A total of 395 people have applied for 200 slots for certified sports doctors to work during the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics as volunteers, the Japanese organizing committee said.

english.kyodonews.net

A total of 395 people have applied for 200 slots for certified sports doctors to work during the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics as volunteers, the Japanese organizing committee said Monday.
The committee plans to have all of them become medical service providers at venues of the Summer Games, although the number of applications, which it finished accepting on Friday, turned out to be nearly twice as high as its initial target.
...
Ensuring a sufficient number of medical staff has been an issue for the organizing committee as the medical system in Japan has already been stretched amid the coronavirus pandemic.

 

[Sylvia]

NBCUniversal Upfront Doubles Down On Olympics Going Ahead Despite Pandemic & Political Worries About Tokyo & Beijing

UPDATED with Paralympic Games commentators info: A majority of Japanese citizens oppose the Olympics to go ahead in Tokyo due to the coronavirus pandemic, but NBC insists the Games will go on, at least for now. “NBC will be bringing all of it to America,” declared Mike Tirico today at the 2021...

www.yahoo.com

A majority of Japanese citizens oppose the Olympics to go ahead in Tokyo due to the coronavirus pandemic, but NBC insists the Games will go on, at least for now.
“NBC will be bringing all of it to America,” declared Mike Tirico today at the 2021 virtual NBCUniversal upfronts presentation.

NBCUNIVERSAL ANNOUNCES COMMENTATORS FOR ITS COVERAGE OF THIS SUMMER’S TOKYO PARALYMPIC GAMES

nbcsportsgrouppressbox.com

NBCUniversal’s Paralympic Games coverage, which will once again be presented by Toyota, will include more than 200 hours of television programming across NBC, NBCSN and Olympic Channel: Home of Team USA and the first-ever primetime hours on NBC, as well as 1,000+ hours of streaming coverage.
Ahmed Fareed and Carolyn Manno will serve as hosts of NBCU’s Paralympics coverage. Fareed will make his Paralympics debut this summer while Manno reprises her hosting role for the fourth consecutive Games. Fareed and Manno will be joined by 14 play-by-play commentators, analysts and reporters. In total, Team NBC has won a total of 30 Paralympic medals.

Three Paralympians will make their debut as analysts. Two-time Paralympic swimming gold medalist Michelle Konkoly will join play-by-play commentator Todd Harris, who returns for his fourth straight Paralympic Games, on swimming. 2008 Paralympic gold medalist Mark Zupan will serve as wheelchair rugby analyst with play-by-play voice Ed Cohen, while 2016 sitting volleyball Paralympic gold medalist Kari Miller will join Tanith White as an analyst for sitting volleyball.

 

[Sylvia]

Asia Nikkei article titled Pros and cons of holding the Tokyo Olympics during a pandemic (May 19):

Pros and cons of holding the Tokyo Olympics during a pandemic

Organizers say Games can be 'safe and secure' but domestic opposition strong

tinyurl.com

Excerpts:

Upon entry, Olympic arrivals will be required to submit two negative tests, a detailed activity plan and a written pledge to abide by it. Athletes and officials will be tested daily and banned from public transport in principle, while media will be allowed on trains and buses after a 14-day quarantine.
"If they can cut contact with locals, it is unlikely that they spread the virus in Japan," said Nobuhiko Okabe of the Kawasaki Institute of Public Health, and a member of a panel of experts advising Tokyo 2020 on COVID countermeasures.
"The real challenge is how the rules will be complied with by other stakeholders and media," Okabe said.

But public opinion appears unable to sway Japan's public and private sectors, which have invested seven years and over $24 billion in the Olympics. Triggering a cancellation would make Japan liable for repaying the International Olympic Committee.
Nor will the trigger be pulled by the IOC, who would have to repay broadcasters and sponsors.
"That puts a huge burden on sports globally because a huge amount of money would not be dispersed to the national governing bodies across the world who are really struggling financially," said Dichter. "They rely on income from the Olympic Games."

 

[missing]

On the one hand...

(CNN)International Olympic Committee member Dick Pound says he believes the Olympic Games will go ahead this year and says the option of canceling the event is "essentially off the table..."

Earlier this year, Pound -- who is the longest-serving member of the IOC -- put the likelihood of the Games going ahead at about 75% but now says the probability is much higher, with experts learning more about the virus everyday.

"None of the folks involved in the planning and the execution of the Games is considering cancellation," he added.
"That's essentially off the table. Whether there's some huge event of some sort that we can't anticipate that might intervene in the next 60 days, who knows."

On the other hand...

(CNN) — The Tokyo Olympics, postponed in 2020 during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, are facing increasing hurdles in putting on a 2021 show.

The latest troubling sign for the Summer Games came Monday when the State Department advised US citizens against traveling to Japan because of a sharp increase in Covid-19 cases.

The "Level 4: Do Not Travel" advisory is the highest cautionary level in the department's hierarchy of warnings.

It's been more than a year since Americans have paid tourist calls to the nation. Japan has been closed to US leisure travelers throughout the pandemic, with only "very limited" circumstances in which US citizens could enter.

The Games are still scheduled to run from July 23 to August 8 in Japan.

Japanese chief cabinet secretary Katsunobu Kato said on Tuesday that Tokyo believes there is no change in US support for holding the Olympics despite the State Department's advisory against traveling to Japan.

"We have also received an explanation from the United States that the decision to raise the travel advisory level (to Japan) to Level 4 is not related to the dispatch of the athletes from the United States," Kato told reporters at a news conference.

 

[Vash01]

Why is the vaccination rate so low in Japan? Seems unusual for such an advanced country.

 

[allezfred]

Why is the vaccination rate so low in Japan? Seems unusual for such an advanced country.

Why is adult vaccination uptake low in Japan? - ILCUK

ilcuk.org.uk

 

[4rkidz]

Why is adult vaccination uptake low in Japan? - ILCUK

ilcuk.org.uk

Im sure the skating fans will be tracking down vaccines for travel next skating season.

 

[Sylvia]

"Members of the Australian women's softball team on Tuesday became the first group of athletes to arrive in Japan for a training camp since the Tokyo Olympics were postponed more than a year ago..."

Australian softball squad 1st team to arrive in Japan for Olympics

Members of the Australian women's softball team on June 1 became the first group of athletes to arrive in Japan for a training camp since the Tokyo Olympics were postponed more than a year ago due to the coronavirus pandemic.

english.kyodonews.net

The 23 "Aussie Spirit" players and five staff, who came via Singapore, will start pre-Olympics training in Ota, Gunma Prefecture, northwest of Tokyo, on Saturday.
All team members, who have received coronavirus vaccinations, will be under strict restrictions while in Japan, where infections have been declining at a slow pace.
The team members will be required to undergo daily virus testing and be prevented from interacting with the general public, with all sleeping, dining and meeting rooms confined to a single floor in their hotel.
The players and staff will only be allowed to leave the hotel to travel to and from their training facilities. The team will train for over a month, during which it will play practice matches against clubs from the Japanese professional softball league and universities.

 

[skipaway]

10,000 Volunteers Quit Ahead of Tokyo Games


This could more than jeopardize these games.

 

[Lemonade20]

10,000 Volunteers Quit Ahead of Tokyo Games


This could more than jeopardize these games.

Ouch, wow

 

[Sylvia]

Japan to raise cap on VIP groups for Tokyo Games | NHK WORLD-JAPAN News

NHK has learned that the Japanese government plans to raise the limit on the size of foreign high-level delegations visiting the country for the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics.

www3.nhk.or.jp

NHK has learned that the Japanese government plans to raise the limit on the size of foreign high-level delegations visiting the country for the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics.
The government initially set a 12-person cap on delegations led by heads of state or other dignitaries. The limit is intended to reduce the risk of coronavirus infections.
But the government plans to review the rule after considering complaints that the ceiling is too strict for such groups to provide sufficient security for dignitaries.
The government will likely increase the limit to 18 in principle and lift it further to 40 if necessary.

Sigh, of course.

The government will likely ask delegation members to be vaccinated against the coronavirus before departing for Japan. It is also expected to strongly recommend they limit their stays in the country to within five days and four nights.
The government will likely allow delegations to use public transport for long-distance travel in the country. But it is expected to ask them to rent entire train cars for such trips or take other measures in order to avoid contact with other passengers.
The government plans to explain these new rules to foreign embassy officials as early as Friday and ask them to ensure their delegations abide by the regulations.

Good luck with that! <sarcasm intended>

 

[Vagabond]

Good luck with that! <sarcasm intended>

Snarky Sylvia rides again!

 

[Lemonade20]

Japan to raise cap on VIP groups for Tokyo Games | NHK WORLD-JAPAN News

NHK has learned that the Japanese government plans to raise the limit on the size of foreign high-level delegations visiting the country for the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics.

www3.nhk.or.jp

Sigh, of course.

Good luck with that! <sarcasm intended>

Funny how they're more worried about having vaccinated people from abroad coming instead of vaccinating their own people.

 

[Carolla5501]

So let me get this right, Japan could host the figure skating event a few months ago with an audience and now they can’t host the Olympics?

. Interesting. If they don’t do this event this year it will not happen next year that’s over and Japan will never get another Olympics


I find it interesting but apparently some events can be held and it is safe and yet the Olympics are dangerous?

Of course can someone tell me why Johnny Weir should be going to these Olympics at all. Maybe the first place in BBC can cut back is on people who know nothing about that sports and think it’s all about their wardrobe