The development of a vaccine or a treatment will be a fundamental element to allow the Olympics-2020 to open in 2021, according to the president of the organizing committee.
No vaccine, no Olympics? The development of a vaccine or a treatment against the coronavirus will be a fundamental element to allow the Olympics-2020, postponed for one year, to be able to open on July 23, 2021, said on Wednesday the chairman of the committee of organization, Yoshiro Mori.
“The first point will be that a vaccine or a drug has been developed,” said Yoshiro Mori in an interview with Japanese audiovisual group NHK. “If the situation continues as it is at the moment, we will not be able to organize the Games, added the official, who does not dare to envisage the worst.” I cannot imagine that the situation of this year could continue next year, “he continued.
The Olympics-2020, which should have opened on Friday July 24 and ended on August 9, have been postponed for a year following a decision by the IOC taken last March in agreement with the Japanese government. Recent polls have, however, shown a decline in public interest and enthusiasm for the world’s largest sporting event, as the threat of Covid-19 resurfaces in Japan.
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A sharp rise in the number of contaminations in Tokyo
According to a survey published this week by the news agency Kyodo News, only one in four people in Japan want the Tokyo Games to go on next year, with most supporting further delay or cancellation.
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Yoshiro Mori for his part refuses to consider holding the Games behind closed doors, or in the presence of a reduced number of spectators. “If it turns out to be the only alternative, then we will have to think about maintaining the Games,” said the boss of the organizing committee, adding that “if that happens, then we could consider cancellation”.
Japan, one of the countries least affected by the coronavirus thanks to a very strict isolation policy, to date deplores less than 1,000 officially recorded deaths from the virus, for nearly 27,000 people who have been infected. But the city of Tokyo and its metropolitan area, which forms the largest megalopolis in the world with some 37 million inhabitants, have seen the number of cases of infected people increase suddenly since mid-July.
