- My biggest concern is of course that there will be a cluster of infected people in the village or in some other accommodation and also interaction with the locals, says Kenji Shibuya, former head of the Department of Public Health at King's College London.
Insufficient testing at the border and the inability to control human movements mean that games can exacerbate the spread of the contagious delta variant, he adds.
IOC chief: "Zero risk"
Thomas Bach, chairman of the International Olympic Committee, said last week that testing and quarantine routines pose "zero risk" for participants to infect Japanese residents.
- Such statements only confuse and make people angry, says Shibuya, who believes that the actual conditions are "completely opposite".
In April, Shibuya wrote in the British Medical Journal that the decision to conduct the Olympics must be reconsidered as Japan cannot adequately limit the spread of covid-19.
On Saturday, less than a week before the opening of the Olympics, 1,410 new covid cases were registered in Tokyo, the highest daily figure in almost six months.
To date, at least 58 people connected to the Olympics have been found infected in Japan.
Experts have warned that seasonal factors, increased mobility and the spread of the delta variant could lead to a sharp increase to over 2,000 cases per day in Tokyo next month.
Only 33 percent of Japan's population has received at least one vaccine dose.
To the Olympic program.