Japan will not be admitting spectators to the Olympics, which begin July 23 in the capital, Tokyo.
The Japanese Olympic Minister Tamayo Marukawa said on Thursday after consultations between the local organizers and the International Olympic Committee.
IOC President Thomas Bach, who arrived in Tokyo on Thursday and is still in the hotel during the quarantine, spoke of a difficult decision even before the deliberations.
The organizers of the games are reacting to the decision taken by the Japanese government on Thursday to put Tokyo under a virus emergency again by August 22.
Patrick Welter
Correspondent for business and politics in Japan, based in Tokyo.
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The waiver of spectators is another blow to the sports festival, which was postponed by a year last year due to the corona pandemic. Foreign sports fans had already unloaded the organizers of the games months ago in consultation with the government. According to the current status, the virus emergency should end two days before the start of the Paralympic Games. This leaves the chance that spectators will be admitted to the Paralympics starting on August 24th.
The government had only slightly relaxed the anti-corona requirements in the capital in mid-June.
Since then, however, the number of new infections has increased again.
On Thursday, Tokyo reported 896 new viral infections, up from 920 the previous day.
The last time the number was higher was on May 13th.
Doctors such as the government's most important Corona advisor, Shigeru Omi, warn that with the increasing spread of the Delta variant, a fifth virus wave is threatening, especially at the time of the Olympic Games.
Omi considers it desirable to forego spectators during the games.
The 7-day incidence in Tokyo was most recently around 30, compared to 6 in Berlin.
Renouncing many Olympic joys
To protect against corona, the number of spectators for the Olympic Games had previously been reduced to 10,000 and a maximum of half the seats available in the stadiums.
Under the virus emergency, however, no more spectators will be admitted in Tokyo and in the neighboring prefectures.
This also applies to the surfing competition on the Pacific coast in Chiba prefecture.
Japan is already giving up many of the joys associated with the Olympic Games.
The torch relay that will reach Tokyo this Friday has in fact been canceled.
The Olympic flame will not be seen on public roads in the capital.
There will only be one daily event at which the torch-bearers actually intended can present themselves.
The torch relay should only take place as planned on the small islands that belong to Tokyo far off the coast.
The governor of Tokyo, Yuriko Koike, has already canceled public shows in parks or in public places for the games.
The city of Sapporo on the northern island of Hokkaido, where the marathon is to take place, asked its residents to watch the sporting event on TV and not on the roadside.
Virus emergency has turned more dramatic than it really is for the Japanese.
The population is asked to prefer to stay at home and to work from home if possible.
The most important restriction is that bars, karaoke bars and restaurants should close at 8:00 p.m. and shouldn't serve alcohol during the day either.
Tokyo also wants to ask large department stores to close at 8 p.m. in the evening.
With around 810,000 infections and most recently 14,884 deaths, Japan has weathered the pandemic far better than Western countries. For comparison: Germany, with its population smaller by a third, has more than 3.7 million infections and more than 91,000 virus deaths. Japan threatens to gamble away the advantage because the vaccination campaign started later as a result of administrative delays and is still stuttering now and again. The country has only fully vaccinated 15 percent of the population, while in Germany it is almost 40 percent.