Tokyo Olympics banned from foreign spectators due to Covid-19
The Tokyo Olympics are to be held from July 23 to August 8.
AP - Eugene Hoshiko
Text by: RFI Follow
4 min
The organizers of the Tokyo Olympics have decided this Saturday, March 20: due to health risks linked to the Covid-19 pandemic, there will be no spectators from abroad at the rescheduled Olympics this summer.
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Impossible, for the Japanese organizers of the Tokyo Olympics, to consider the presence of foreign spectators this summer.
Given the health situation in Japan and abroad, visitors "
will not be able to enter Japan at the time of the Olympics
", scheduled from July 23 to August 8, they say.
In a press release, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) say they fully respect and accept this conclusion.
►
To read also: Olympic Games: Tokyo games without spectators?
The option is on the table
This announcement was made following a meeting between the five Games stakeholders: the Organizing Committee and the city of Tokyo, the Japanese government, the IOC and the IPC.
"
Our first priority has been, is and remains the safety of all participants in the Olympic Games and of the Japanese people
", declared in the preamble of the meeting Thomas Bach, the president of the IOC, evoking "
sacrifices on behalf of each one
" .
Since the beginning of March, the Japanese media have been announcing that the Japanese authorities have already opted for a ban on spectators from abroad, due to the concern of the population of the country in the face of Covid-19 and its variants.
A first
This ban is unprecedented.
"
This never happened [...] even during the Spanish flu during the Olympic Games in Antwerp in 1920
", recalled Jean-Loup Chappelet, professor emeritus at the University of Lausanne (Switzerland) and specialist in the Olympic Games. .
Scheduled for summer 2020, the Tokyo Games have been postponed for a year due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The organizers will now have to find a solution to reimburse hundreds of thousands of tickets sold outside Japan and to cope with this shortfall, while the Tokyo-2020 budget has already reached 13 billion euros, a record for the Olympics summer.
Other draconian health measures are planned.
A decision on the tonnage of Olympic venues for the public residing in Japan is due in April at the earliest.
However, the vaccination of participants will not be compulsory, but the IOC strongly encourages it.
►
To read also: Tokyo Olympics: athletes will be subject to strict rules
Anxiety
The terms used by the organizers in their communication reflect the unpredictability of the pandemic.
While they announced last summer the Games supposed to symbolize "
the victory of humanity over the virus
", they now insist on "
the anxiety
" of the Japanese and "
the priority
" to give to their safety.
If it was better than others to cope with the health crisis, Japan experienced a significant upsurge in infections between November and the end of January, forcing the government to temporarily reimpose a state of emergency in a large part of the country, including in Tokyo.
The Japanese government launched a vaccination program in February which currently only concerns healthcare workers.
Most of the country's population should not be vaccinated by the Olympics.
For several months, Japanese public opinion has been overwhelmingly hostile to holding the Games this summer, preferring a further postponement or outright cancellation.
And a poll published on March 8 by the daily
Yomiuri
revealed that only 18% of Japanese people were in favor of allowing spectators coming from abroad for the Games.
(
With
AFP)
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