Experts don’t believe in next summer’s Olympics either – NRK Urix – Foreign News and Documentaries

An increasing number of people, including Japan, doubt that it is possible to organize the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo.

“To be honest, I don’t think the Olympics are likely to take place next year,” says professor and virus expert Kentaro Iwata of Kobe University in Japan.

He justifies it in the following way:

– There are two conditions that must be met. One is that the coronavirus must be under control. The second is that the corona virus must be under control because it invites athletes and spectators from around the world, he said during a press conference earlier this week.

Basically, the 2020 Olympics will be held between July 23 and August 8, 2021, after the crown pandemic finally forced the IOC and Japanese organizers to postpone the games.

– Unrealistic

But there are already several medical experts who doubt whether it will be possible to organize the Tokyo Olympics in almost 15 months. At least as long as there is no effective vaccine or treatment for covid-19.

And most experts don’t believe an effective and available vaccine is ready by 2020.

Devi Sridhar, professor of global health at the University of Edinburgh, believes that the implementation of the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics in 2021 will depend on the development of a vaccine.

“Without a scientific breakthrough and a vaccine, the Olympics will look unrealistic next summer,” she says.

– it will be difficult

Initially, around 15,000 athletes are expected to attend the subsequent Olympics and Paralympic Games, unless restrictions are placed on the number of participants next year.

The president of the Japanese Medical Association, Yoshitake Yokokura, says that it will be very difficult to organize an Olympiad.

“I am not saying that Japan should or should not host the Olympics, but that it will be difficult to implement,” he said, according to Reuters.

“Even if the epidemic were controlled in Japan, it would still be difficult to organize the games unless the pandemic has ended in the rest of the world,” says Yokokura.

Also the CEO of the Tokyo Olympics, Yoshiro Muto, is among those who have doubted that the toys can be completed next year. He recently said that no one knows if it is possible to control the coronavirus next year.

In Tokyo, more than 100 new cases of infection are recorded every day. So far there have been around 400 deaths in Japan, around 100 of them in the capital.

Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike on Wednesday called for an extension of Japan’s declared state of emergency in relation to the crown pandemic. It expires on May 6.

“Tokyo is still facing a serious situation, so I would have liked to see it on hold for a while,” he says.

Do not move the Olympics again.

However, Olympic President Yoshiro Mori categorically rejects the move to move to the 2022 Olympics if the situation is not under control.

In that case, the Tokyo 2020 Olympics will be canceled rather than postponed again, Mori says, according to the BBC.

“These Olympics will be much more valuable than any Olympiad in the past, if we can continue after winning this battle,” he told Nikkan Sports.

– We have to believe this, he emphasizes.

John Coates, who chairs the Tokyo Games Coordination Committee, says he disagrees with the need for a covid-19 vaccine to carry out the Olympics.