Ivata Kentaro, a professor of infectious diseases, is very pessimistic when it comes to organizing the Olympics next summer.

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“I don’t think the Olympics can be held next year,” a professor at Kobe University said in a conference call on Monday. He also added that keeping the Tokyo Games postponed for a year this summer is conditional on curbing and controlling the coronavirus epidemic worldwide.

However, Kentaro is very pessimistic: You can only imagine the event if, for example, the competitions are held without spectators or if the number of participating countries is extremely limited.

It is necessary to invite many athletes, from many places that are not really compatible with this infection. Japan will be able to treat this disease next summer, but I don’t think it’s the same everywhere in the world. “

He explained.

The Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games and the International Olympic Committee have previously stated that they only expect the Olympic Games to be held from July 23 to August 8, 2021, they do not have Plan B.

Over the weekend, Devi Sridhar, a professor at the University of Edinburgh, talked about whether hosting the games next summer will depend on whether there will be a coronavirus vaccine by then. Ali S. Khan, dean of the University of Nebraska, on the other hand, believed that 15 months was enough for public health to treat the problem without vaccines or medications. He added that the event should be rethought in terms of competition venues, athletes and spectators.

Zach Binney, an epidemiologist at Emory University in the United States, also said that we should wait for the vaccine to host such an important event. He considers that the summer date of next year is too optimistic and, as he said, without vaccination, each person in the crowd is a risk, that is, organizing competitions and matches in front of 50-100 thousand people is a great risk.

Binney hopes that the vaccine will be ready by the end of 2021. According to him, the Olympics would be an especially risky event, posing a serious threat to people who come to Japan from infected areas and then return from there. I would consider it safer for athletes to arrive in Tokyo four to six weeks before the Olympics and strictly isolate them for two weeks before going to the Olympic Village, making the village a virus-free quarantine area.

Jason Kindrachuk, an infectious disease expert at the University of Manitoba in Canada, hopes the vaccine will be available in a year, but warned that it will take time to vaccinate people and that it will take time for the body to develop effective protection against infection. . In their opinion, if the vaccine is not completed by then, organizers will be able to keep the five-ring sets even if they are flexible and well prepared.

Japan is officially spending $ 12.6 billion on the Olympics, although the government audit agency estimates it will double that amount. The deferral will consume an additional $ 2-6 billion. There will be around 11,000 participants in the Olympic Games and 4,400 in the Paralympic Games, accompanied by many coaches, sports leaders and fans.



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The three-time Olympic champion betrayed: the news of the postponement of the Tokyo Games shook him.


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Most players in the world of sports agree that in the situation caused by the coronavirus epidemic, where many competitors were unable to prepare, the organizers did the right thing when they decided to postpone the Tokyo Olympics in the summer. However, there are also some Hungarian athletes whose calculations were crossed by the decision. There are those who speak of blackmail, and there are those who announce the end of their careers on Tuesday.