The organizers would like to avoid quarantine for foreign spectators.
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Charly TRIBALLEAU / AFP
Quarantine rules could be lifted for foreign spectators at the Tokyo-2020 Olympics, postponed to 2021 due to the coronavirus, organizers said on Thursday, as optimism grows over the event to be held with public. .
Travel for athletes and officials will be severely restricted for two weeks after entering Japan, but this will be difficult for spectators to implement, said Toshiro Muto, general manager of the Tokyo-2020 organizing committee.
"The number of foreign spectators being very high, fourteen and a ban on the use of public transport are unrealistic," he explained to the press after a meeting of the organizing committee.
Instead, "pre-testing, health surveillance, careful screening at the border, post-entry checks (and) rapid action if symptoms appear" are part of the anti-Covid package being considered in Tokyo, he added.
The IOC says it is "confident"
The Tokyo Olympics are due to open on July 23, 2021 after a historic one-year postponement decided in March of this year following the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Decisions on the number of spectators at the Olympics next year or on the rules for the public will be taken next spring, Mr. Muto said Thursday.
Japanese and Olympic officials are more confident, especially since the successful organization of two test competitions in recent weeks in Tokyo (baseball and gymnastics).
“After seeing the various tests in Japan, we can be more and more confident that we will have a reasonable number of spectators also at the Olympic venues,” said Thomas Bach, President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on Wednesday.
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