On the 25th, the torch relay for the Tokyo Olympics began at J Village, a training facility for Japan's national football team in Fukushima Prefecture.

Due to the concern of corona 19 infection, the number of attendees was drastically reduced from 3,000 to 400 initially, and the event time was also shortened from 1 hour to 20 minutes.

The Japanese media expressed a sense of relief that the torch had at least'departed' this year compared to last year, when the Olympics itself was postponed one year the day before the start of the torch relay, but considering the spread of the corona that has not changed much compared to a year ago, it is uneasy. Is still there.



The torch of the Tokyo Olympics went around three days in Fukushima, and from that day (28th), it entered Tochigi Prefecture, and yesterday (29th) was the second day of the Tochigi beacon.

Tochigi prefecture is not the first prefecture (Tokyo prefecture) and three prefectures (Chiba, Kanagawa, and Saitama prefectures), which are often classified as a metropolitan area, but it is a large-area municipality just north of Saitama.

The torch is sent on a schedule that travels north of the metropolitan area such as Gunma and Nagano Prefectures after Tochigi Prefecture, but these local governments are not as large as the metropolitan area, but the population is dense by base city, and the Tokyo Olympic Organizing Committee and the Japanese government are tightly tense.



The Japanese authorities have summarized the following five points of caution when viewing torch relays, and are requesting the local governments to strengthen their management.

First, if you're not in good shape, don't come out to see the torch.

Second, don't go far and see near your house.

Third, be sure to wear a mask on the side of the road where the torch passes.

Fourth, secure social distance from the people around you who are watching together.

Fifth, cheer with applause instead of loud voices.



But yesterday (28th), a situation that the organizers were concerned about occurred in the second section of Ashikaga City, Tochigi Prefecture.

The first runner in this section was Katsumata Kunikazu (56), a broadcaster from a famous comedian in Japan, and many people flocked to see this person from the outskirts of the track and field stadium, the destination near the city hall, and became so-called'dense'. I will.

The organizing committee announced after the death that "the crowding occurred in a short time and did not reach a state of confusion enough to stop sending the torch." It's hard to guarantee that nothing else will happen.




Some celebrities who had already foreseen this situation even resigned from relay runners before the torch began.

A representative person is Hitomi Kuroki, an actress who is well known in Korea for the movie [Paradise Lost (1997)].

“If there is a large crowd of people in the year, there is a fear that it will be difficult to prevent infection, so we will resign.”

Atsushi Tamura, a famous comedian, raised a problem with other comments from Chairman Mori when Yoshiro Mori announced the resignation of runners in protest after the remarks of ``female contempt'' by then-Tokyo Olympic Organizing Committee Chairman Yoshiro Mori. Resignation of the torch runner.

That is, "Olympic Games will be held no matter what the coronavirus is."



The reason why many people in Japan raise concerns about the torch relay that began after twists and turns is that the trend of re-spreading infection is already rising before the corona emergency, which was issued from January to March, is lifted.

In the Osaka area, Japan's second largest metropolitan area, new infections are emerging close to Tokyo, and in particular, the situation in areas where the emergency was lifted about a month ahead of the four metropolitan local governments such as Tokyo is getting worse again.

Japan's Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare says the infection has spread in 28 metropolitan local governments across Japan for a week after the emergency was lifted on the 21st.

The number of new infections has increased from the previous week.



In each local government, the heads of local governments are strengthening their boundaries by referring to the '4th epidemic'.

The local governments that have issued their own emergencies at the discretion of the local government heads so far are Miyagi and Yamagata prefectures in the Tohoku region, and Ehime prefectures in the Shikoku region.

In Miyagi Prefecture, where infected people are spreading, especially in Sendai City, the largest city in the Tohoku region, the number of new infected people per 100,000 people over the past week was 36.08, more than twice that of Tokyo's 16.08 during the same period.

Other infection indicators, such as the number of patients in nursing care and the rate of bed use, are also rapidly deteriorating.




As the Olympic torch has already started to travel around the region, each local government in Japan is keenly aware that the torch will lead to a re-proliferation of the corona in the region.

The Olympic atmosphere doesn't live because it strongly blocks the'crowd' of people coming out to the streets to see the torch, so it's a situation where we are concerned about the spread of the corona.

The uneasy situation in which the torch revolves around Japan amid fears of an infection'explosion' will continue for 115 days before the opening of the Olympics.



(Photo = Getty Image Korea)