Tokyo (AFP)

Thousands of Olympic volunteers and officials began to be vaccinated on Friday in Tokyo, nearly a month before the Games, as experts warned it would be safer to hold the event without spectators.

The organizers are now in the home stretch before the opening ceremony scheduled for July 23 and are scrambling to finalize the anti-Covid rules and have as many participants as possible vaccinated on time.

They also face a controversial and difficult decision over how many local spectators, if any, will be present in the stands as audiences from overseas have been banned, a first in Olympic history.

Japanese athletes have already started to be vaccinated, but the program was extended Friday to Olympic staff, volunteers and others who will rub shoulders with foreign athletes.

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The International Olympic Committee (IOC) donated enough doses of Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine for 40,000 people, including airport staff, local journalists and Olympic referees.

These doses are separate from those used for the nationwide campaign in Japan, which gained momentum recently, with more than 6% of the population now fully immunized.

The vaccinations come as the organizers of the Olympics strive to convince a skeptical Japanese public that the biggest international event since the start of the pandemic will be safe.

This week, they warned athletes could be kicked out of the Games if they break mask-wearing or daily testing rules.

But they are faced with a difficult decision: whether or not to allow local spectators in the stands.

- Ceiling of 10,000 spectators -

A group of medical experts advising the government said on Friday that a closed-door Olympics would be safer.

"The absence of spectators would create a lower risk in terms of the spread of infections within the venues. So we think that would be ideal," they wrote in a report submitted to the Tokyo-2020 organizers and to the Japanese government.

The number of spectators at the Games will be limited by the government's antivirus measures.

In Tokyo, the number of spectators is currently capped at 5,000 people or 50% of a venue's capacity, whichever is lower.

This rule will remain in force at least until July 11, even if the state of health emergency ends on Sunday.

After July 11, the cap will be raised to 10,000 people or 50% of a venue's capacity, but experts have urged organizers of the Olympics to "impose stricter standards" if they allow spectators.

And they warned that organizers must be prepared to back down and ban all spectators if the health situation and pressure on the medical system worsens during the Games.

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A final decision on local spectators is expected next week, with local media indicating that a limit of 10,000 is the most likely.

The Tokyo-2020 organizing committee announced on Friday that it had further reduced the number of foreign participants coming to Japan for the Olympics and Paralympics to 53,000, not counting about 15,500 athletes.

This figure is well below the 177,000 people initially expected, including officials, sponsors and the media, he said.

© 2021 AFP