Tokyo 2020: IOC reassures Games  will be safe

The International Olympic Committee on Wednesday reassured an anxious Japan that the Tokyo Olympics will be safe for athletes as well as the host community amid mounting opposition to the Games and fears it will fuel a spike in COVID-19 cases.

Speaking in Tokyo alongside senior Japanese officials, IOC chief Thomas Bach said more than 80 per cent of residents of the Olympics Village would be vaccinated or booked for vaccination ahead of the Games due to start on July 23.

He rejected mounting calls for the global sporting showpiece — already delayed once due to the pandemic — to be cancelled, saying other sporting events had proven that the Olympics could go ahead with strong COVID-safe precautions.

Bach’s comments came as Japan continued to struggle with a fourth wave of infections and a slow vaccine roll-out which has undermined the public’s already shaky confidence that the Games should go ahead.

“Together with our Japanese partners and friends, I can only re-emphasise this full commitment of the IOC to organise together safe Olympic and Paralympic Games for everybody. To accomplish this, we are now fully focused on the delivery of the Olympic Games,” he said.

Less than 30 per cent of medics in Japan’s major cities had been vaccinated against COVID-19 with just 65 days to go before the start of Olympics, the Nikkei newspaper reported on Wednesday.

Cabinet figures released this week showed that three months into Japan’s COVID-19 vaccination push, less than 40 per cent of its medical workers were fully inoculated.

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The problem is especially pronounced in Tokyo, host of the Games, and other large population centres, where the rate of fully vaccinated medical workers was less than 30 per cent.

So far, just 3.7 per cent of Japan’s population of 126 million have gotten at least one vaccine shot, the lowest rate among wealthy countries.]