Time running out on Tokyo Olympics

February 19, 2020

Japan needs to rethink the Olympics. The most pressing reason to postpone or cancel the 2020 Tokyo summer games, which are due to start in late July, is a raging public health crisis of unknown dimensions.

The second most important reason to put the Olympics on hold is the Japanese government response to the public health crisis to date: it has shown itself to have feet of clay.

If the Diamond Princess cruise ship, docked in Yokohama Port under quarantine, is a litmus test of Japan’s ability to exercise compassion and competence in an emergency involving thousands of people from around the world, the Abe government has failed miserably.

Prime Minister Abe Shinzo continues to dither while a ship docked in a Japanese port is ravaged by a dangerous virus; nearly 500 infected at latest count. Mr Abe and his political associates continue to proclaim the Olympics will not be delayed, but that is just wishful thinking.

How can a country move forward with plans to “welcome” the world to the Tokyo games when it can’t even deal with a single cruise ship stranded in Tokyo Bay?

• Japan hits back at ‘chaotic’ cruise ship quarantine claims
• Two passengers from quarantined cruise ship in Japan die
• Two die on virus ship

Ever since right-wing firebrand Ishihara Shintaro was mayor of Tokyo, the 2020 Olympics have been a pet project of Japan nationalists seeking to burnish a flawed legacy. They hold the vain hope the 2020 games will be as transformative as the 1964 Tokyo Olympics famously were, again heralding an era of national pride.

Perhaps the turning point of the Beijing Olympics of 2008 is a more apt comparison, given the upsurge of social control, information control and the discordant noise of nationalism.

Among other things, Mr Abe also sees the Olympics as a way of proving to the world that the Fukushima nuclear mess — Japan’s answer to Chernobyl — is not a cause for concern. This is ironic because the messy aftermath of the triple disaster (earthquake, tsunami and meltdown) of March 2011 has been seized upon by Mr Abe and his allies to tighten their grip on power.

Fukushima is an environmental tragedy, but the fact is, it cannot be fully contained, so the struggle has shifted to containing information.

Former prime minister Koizumi Junichiro has called Mr Abe “a liar” for sugar-coating the disaster. Mr Abe had statistics about evacuees were reclassified and altered to make things look more positive. He reassured the Olympic Committee that things at Fukushima were “under control”, which is to say he had the flow of information under control, not the toxic, radioactive leaks. In 2019, Mr Abe’s cabinet shamelessly made a move to dump a million tonnes of “harmless” contaminated water into the open sea.

Mr Abe’s ability to control information is bolstered by an “official secrets act” that criminalises journalists and whistleblowers for reporting leaked information, including radiation leaks. He has exonerated those most responsible for the nuclear mishap — big players in the electric power industry — and put the burden on the taxpayer, reminiscent of the US bailout of Wall Street bailout in 2008.

Only instead of toxic default swaps, it’s a swapping of feel-good stories for news of toxic doom.

Japanese consumers are justifiably nervous about food sourced near the Daiichi Nuclear plant, but Mr Abe is willfully pushing to include food from Fukushima at the Tokyo Olympic Village to “prove” it isn’t tainted.

Nor is it mere coincidence that Mr Abe’s government wants the Olympic Torch Run to commence just 20 kilometres from the damaged Dai-Ichi reactor.

Fearing negative news, hundreds of Japan evacuees from Wuhan were quietly dumped at Haneda Airport without mandatory quarantine. Some took the train home. The Abe government also made a point of asking the World Health Organisation (WHO) not to include the feverish passengers on Diamond Princess in Japan’s national case toll, presumably in order not to dampen “Olympic fever”.

Mr Abe’s icy silence regarding the stricken ship was broken with a silly string of excuses for not being able to test everyone. Hong Kong tested and cleared an entire cruise ship in less time than it took Japan to test a tenth of the passengers.

Even as the coronavirus started to spread among Japanese who had not travelled to China in mid-February, a gala Olympic torch event was held in the streets of Tokyo. Even as public health experts warned of a crisis brewing, it was business as usual for tourist festivals, including the uniquely vulnerable “10,000 naked man festival” in Okayama, which brings to mind the ill-fated “feast for 10,000” held by officials in Wuhan.

The Japanese government’s failure to test all cruise passengers meant even those American passengers “lucky” enough for US evacuation on Monday travelled on planes chartered by the US government in tight spaces with infected passengers.

There are many well-equipped military bases in Japan, dozens under the flag of the Rising Sun, dozens more under the Stars and Stripes.

With so many bases nearby, why is land quarantine not an option?

To portray Mr Abe’s cavalier treatment of the imperilled humans trapped aboard the Diamond Princess as racial or national prejudice is not fair; half of the passengers are Japanese.

But it is not wrong to suggest that the stigmatised human beings aboard that ship are being subject to intense prejudice, despite the fact that many of them happen to hold Japanese passports.

When it comes to stigma and exclusion, Japan can be ruthless to natives and non-natives alike. The tradition of “village outcast” (mura hachibu) in rural Japan has been updated to “shunned to the window” (madogawazoku) in modern offices.

This seems to be the fate of those left on the Diamond Princess, though not all of them have windows to sit by.

Meanwhile, the coronavirus continues to infect human beings regardless of race, creed and myths of national origin. Timely intervention makes a difference, as does common sense and common decency.

Unfortunately, we live in a time of toxic nationalism, intolerance and failed leadership. Not just Japan, but China and the US too. Similar dynamics can be seen at play in smaller countries as well, whether it be Thailand and Cambodia, or England and France.

Any leader who insists that “the show must go on” while doing nothing to help people in real distress proves a fundamental unworthiness to run the show.

https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/1860744/time-running-out-on-tokyo-olympics?fbclid=IwAR28n9F_Roj3mCz2YaH_8QAewP0C8WPDawClR44WwU3sv9CPcDLeSLIFa7k

February 23, 2020 Posted by dunrenard | Japan | 2020 Olympics, Coronavirus | Leave a comment

Japan prepares for widespread coronavirus outbreak

February 18, 2020

As cases of the coronavirus emerge around the country, Japanese health officials are finding it increasingly difficult to identify the routes of infection. The government has announced it is stepping up screening efforts and will have the capacity to test 3,800 people a day starting on Tuesday.

Health ministry official infected despite no close contact

The number of cases in Japan stands at more than 500 as of writing, including 454 from a quarantined cruise ship docked near Tokyo.

Anxiety surrounding the virus has been palpable for weeks, with citizens throughout the country wearing face masks and carrying alcoholic disinfectant. But the concern reached new levels on Monday, after news broke of a health ministry official testing positive. The man, who is in his 50s, had been working on the quarantined cruise ship, reportedly helping control traffic as infected passengers disembarked. Worryingly, he was infected despite only working for about 10 minutes and maintaining a distance of at least two meters from the passengers.

Japan’s health ministry announced on Monday that one of its officials who had been working on the quarantined cruise ship was infected with the coronavirus.

Pressure on government grows

On Monday, the health ministry announced a directive instructing all municipalities to expand screenings to include people with symptoms who have not traveled to the Chinese provinces of Hubei and Zhejiang. Hubei is the epicenter of the outbreak, and has close business links with Zhejiang.

The measure comes after infections were confirmed among people who had neither been to the provinces nor come into contact with people who had.

Laboratories, quarantine stations, universities, and companies around the country are now increasing their personnel in an effort to meet the new testing requirements. The health ministry says the expanded manpower will enable screening of an additional 1,050 people a day.

The ministry says it will also provide medical institutions that have adequate screening equipment with the chemicals and materials needed to conduct testing.

National testing standard

The ministry also announced a set of standards to help people decide when to seek medical assistance:

• People who display symptoms of the common cold or a temperature above 37.5 degrees Celsius for four days are advised to contact a local medical center.
• People experiencing severe fatigue or breathing difficulties, as well as those with fever, are advised to contact a local medical center.
• People vulnerable to viruses, including the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions, are advised to seek medical assistance if they have cold symptoms or fever for two days. Pregnant women are also advised to seek early consultation.

Additionally, ministry officials are urging people to stay home from school or work if they display any symptoms of the cold.

Clinical trials on HIV drug

Health experts are working around the clock on treatment. While it will be some time before a vaccine is available for widespread use, there are signs that one already existing drug may be effective at combating the virus.

The director of Disease Control and Prevention Center, Norio Omagari, told NHK World that a team of researchers from his organization is conducting clinical trials on a drug commonly used to treat HIV. Omagari says that some patients have recovered after the tests, adding that his team is expediting the process to verify the effectiveness of the treatment.

Social impact

The outbreak is affecting a wide range of activities in business and culture.

Japan’s Imperial Household Agency has canceled Emperor Naruhito’s public birthday greetings, which were schedule for February 23. The event would have marked the emperor’s first birthday since ascending to the throne and thousands were expected to attend. It is the first imperial birthday greeting to be called off since 1996, when there was a hostage crisis at the Japanese embassy in Peru.

Meanwhile, the Tokyo Marathon is planning to cancel entries from the general public. The race will be held on March 1, and about 38,000 people had originally registered to take part.

On the business side, Japanese companies with operations in Hubei Province and other parts of China have been struggling to maintain production. The full extent of the impact of the outbreak is difficult to assess but experts say it will prove to be a major setback for the global economy.

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/backstories/880/?fbclid=IwAR3Ao_lQ48NQofFnUGkelL7rTpdn3zOH-7-onF19WIHkxjtpv1EK1V10vH0

February 23, 2020 Posted by dunrenard | Japan | 2020 Olympics, Coronavirus | Leave a comment

Tokyo marathon cancels mass race over coronavirus scare

March race will be restricted to elite runners

News raises more concerns over Tokyo Olympics

Runners, some wearing masks, compete on Sunday in a marathon in Kumamoto city, western Japan.

 

Feb 17, 2020

The mass participation race at the Tokyo marathon, which was expected to have 38,000 people taking part, has become the latest sporting casualty of the coronavirus. In a statement organisers confirmed the event on 1 March will now be limited to the elite field of 176 athletes and 30 wheelchair athletes.

“We have been preparing for the Tokyo marathon 2020 while implementing preventive safety measures, however, now that a case of Covid‑19 [coronavirus] has been confirmed within Tokyo, we cannot continue to launch the event within the scale we originally anticipated,” they said.

Organisers said that all registered runners would be allowed to defer their entry until next year. But they would have to pay again and would also not get their money back from this year’s race. One British runner who had entered the race told the Guardian that she understood the decision but from a personal and financial perspective it was hard to take 13 days before the race.

“My husband Max and I had been planning to run the Tokyo marathon for over two years so to hear this news is gutting,” said Sarah Dudgeon, who had been hoping to run the race in under three hours.

“We understand and respect the decision but you can’t helping feeling the personal ramifications. We had trained hard through the winter and were hoping this would be the running holiday of a lifetime. As things stand, we don’t know whether the £3,000 we have paid for flights and hotels will be refunded if we decide to run the race next year.”

Last week organisers had sounded confident the event would go ahead, announcing plans to distribute surgical masks to runners and volunteers as part of preventive safety measures against the virus. They had also told the 1,800 runners from China they could defer their entry until 2021 without any penalty.

However, the continuing spread of the virus meant on Monday they had little choice but to take the drastic step of limiting the race – which doubles up as an Olympic trial for Japanese marathon runners – to just over 200 participants.

The news is bound to raise more concerns about whether the virus could disrupt the Olympic Games in Tokyo, which are due to start on 24 July. So far there have been more than 70,000 cases in China, with 1,770 deaths. Last week senior officials at the International Olympic Committee insisted there was no plan B to reschedule the Games.

“There’s no case for any contingency plans or cancelling the Games or moving the Games,” John Coates, the head of an IOC inspection team, said. He added the World Health Organisation had advised him that a back-up plan was not necessary and that the Games remain “on track”.

Other experts have warned that the coronavirus-related health risks to Japan are hard to predict. “There is no guarantee that the outbreak will come to an end before the Olympics because we have no scientific basis to be able to say that,” said Shigeru Omi, a former regional director of the WHO.

The Olympic rings are displayed in front of the Japan Olympic Museum in Tokyo.

 

The Tokyo marathon is the biggest sporting event to be affected by the coronavirus. In the past month the World Indoor Championships, due to take place in Nanjing, China in March, were cancelled along with the Shanghai Formula One Grand Prix.

Other sporting events to have been called off or postponed in recent months because of the virus include the Hong Kong Sevens international rugby tournament, the annual Singapore Yacht Show and almost all sports in China.

The London marathon said the situation for the race in April remained unchanged. Hugh Brasher, the event director, said: “We, along with the rest of the world, are monitoring closely the developments relating to the spread of coronavirus and noting the updates and advice given by the UK government, the World Health Organisation and other public bodies. With more than two months to go before the event on Sunday 26 April, we will continue to monitor the situation. We will keep our deferment policy under review as the situation evolves.”

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/feb/17/tokyo-marathon-restricted-to-elite-runners-over-coronavirus-scare-athletics

Runners compete in the 2019 edition of the Tokyo Marathon on March 3, 2019. Organizers on Monday announced that only elite runners will participate in the 2020 race due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Tokyo Marathon canceled for 38,000 runners over COVID-19 fears

Feb 17, 2020

As Japan ramps up its response to the coronavirus outbreak, one of the largest sporting events in the nation will be curtailed, with participation in the Tokyo Marathon limited to elite runners and wheelchair competitors, organizers said Monday.

Thousands of runners will no longer be able to participate in the event next month due to growing fears over a domestic outbreak of COVID-19.

 

The decision to eliminate general participation in the largest marathon in Asia emerged amid growing debate surrounding Tokyo’s preparations to host the 2020 Olympic Games in July despite the ongoing viral outbreak.

The Tokyo Marathon, which is slated for March 1, follows a roughly 42-km route that starts at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building in Shinjuku and finishes at Tokyo Station.

Thirty-eight-thousand runners were set to run in the Tokyo Marathon this year. Participation will be drastically reduced by barring general participants to prevent further spread of the virus. Roughly 200 elite runners will participate in the marathon, which doubles as a qualifying race for the 2020 Games.

Marathon organizers had formed a panel of medical experts in January to devise safety measures as well as ways to prevent further spreading of the novel coronavirus.

On Friday, organizers asked Chinese residents to defer entry to this year’s marathon due to concern of the virus, which is thought to have originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan. Runners were told they would automatically qualify for next year’s marathon if they complied.

Deferred entry was offered to more than 1,800 runners of various nationalities based in China, where, as of Monday, the coronavirus has caused nearly 1,800 deaths and infected more than 70,000 individuals.

The outbreak has led to the cancelation or relocation of sporting events around the world. In January, the International Olympic Committee relocated the Tokyo 2020 Olympic boxing qualifying tournament for the Asian and Oceanic region, which was originally scheduled to take place Feb. 3-14, to the Jordanian capital of Amman.

Olympic women’s soccer qualifying slated for Feb. 3-9 was moved from Wuhan, the city at the epicenter of the outbreak, to Australia, while Asian Champions League games involving Chinese clubs, including several scheduled to take place in Japan, have been pushed back to April and May.

Formula One’s Shanghai Grand Prix, originally scheduled for Apr. 19, has also been postponed.

Despite growing concerns that the novel coronavirus might impact the 2020 Olympics, organizers insist the game will go on.

After saying he was “seriously worried” the virus could dampen hype for the 2020 Games earlier this month, Yoshiro Muto, president of the Tokyo Organising Committee, backtracked and said cancelation or postponement was out of the question.

The 2020 Olympics, which will commence on July 24 with an opening ceremony, will play host to more than 11,000 athletes from over 200 nations.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/sports/2020/02/17/more-sports/track-field/covid19-tokyo-marathon/#.XkuDQCNCeUk

February 23, 2020 Posted by dunrenard | Japan | 2020 Olympics, Coronavirus | Leave a comment

Japan wants cruise ship infected separated from country’s total over economy fears

February 18, 2020 Posted by dunrenard | Japan | 2020 Olympics, Coronavirus | Leave a comment

The ” task force” stage of Olympic cancellation ?

Tokyo Olympic coronavirus task force set up

February 6, 2020

The organizing committee for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games has launched a task force to respond to the spread of the new coronavirus.

The organizer told reporters on Thursday that it set up the task force on Tuesday headed by Director General Toshiro Muto.

It said officials already held a first meeting and talked about the need for cooperation with relevant organizations such as the central government and Tokyo metropolitan government, as well as the International Olympic Committee and the International Paralympic Committee over the virus outbreak.

They plan to discuss concrete measures to ensure the safety of athletes and spectators in the run-up to the torch relays that start in March, test events and the Olympic and Paralympic Games this summer.

Muto said he finds no problem in holding the Games, and his committee will closely monitor the situation in a calm manner, and take every step necessary to ensure safe conditions for athletes and spectators.

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20200206_50/?fbclid=IwAR3ltb5he-giqSgOWS49g44G5nFeDnJp1gBhZHidvZvjNDeML5XRV44Aez0

Tokyo 2020 Organisers set up task force to counter coronavirus

TOKYO (Reuters) – Tokyo Olympics organisers have set up a task force to coordinate with public health authorities on how to respond to the growing coronavirus epidemic.

Tokyo 2020 CEO Toshiro Muto said at a press briefing on Thursday that he chaired the newly created Novel Coronavirus Countermeasures Task Force, which held its first meeting on Feb. 4. A second briefing would be held as early as tomorrow, he said.

Muto said on Wednesday that the coronavirus spread could throw “cold water” over the 2020 Games momentum. At Thursday’s briefing, he pledged that the event “would go on as planned.”

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-olympics-taskforce/tokyo-2020-organisers-set-up-task-force-to-counter-coronavirus-idUSKBN2001DN?fbclid=IwAR1_CgUFP19OUsZI76HPBXNn_Z2vokOkCF3cybrVDVvIHhnGRyZnlK_jjAU

February 6, 2020 Posted by dunrenard | Japan | 2020 Olympics, Coronavirus | Leave a comment

Virus poses stark challenges to Abe’s tourism goals as Tokyo Olympics loom

Some experts say the coronavirus crisis is likely to continue for several months, possibly affecting the Tokyo Olympics starting July 24 — a nightmare scenario for Abe, who has tried to use the world’s largest sporting event to promote the Japanese economy and thereby further drum up voters’ support for his government.

According to a simulation by a medical team led by Gabriel Leung, the dean of the University of Hong Kong’s faculty of medicine, the number of infections in five Chinese mega-cities — Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Chongqing — would peak between late April and early May, meaning the crisis would still continue further beyond that period.

Tourists stroll near Kiyomizu Temple, a popular sightseeing spot in Kyoto, on Thursday. Japan’s recent tourism boom is being tested amid the coronavirus outbreak.

January 31, 2020

The coronavirus outbreak is posing myriad challenges for the Japanese economy, including a key Abe administration policy initiative — the promotion of inbound tourism.

In recent years, inbound tourism has been one of the few sectors to see rapid growth in the long-stagnant Japanese economy. Top government officials, especially Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, have touted the country’s “exploding” inbound tourism as a successful example of their “structural reform” deregulation initiatives.

In fact, everything looked to be on track until recently. The number of foreign tourists skyrocketed from 8.36 million in 2012 to 31.88 million in 2019, largely thanks to the yen’s depreciation and Suga’s initiative to ease Japan’s visa conditions for tourists from other Asian countries, most notably China.

Total spending by foreign tourists in Japan likewise surged from an estimated ¥1.1 trillion to ¥4.8 trillion during the same period, with Chinese tourists spending as much as 36.8 percent of total tourism expenditures in 2019, followed by Taiwanese at 11.4 percent and South Koreans at 8.7 percent.

“It has been confirmed that the effects from inbound tourism … is turning into one of the main growth engines of the Japanese economy,” declared the Japan Tourism Agency in its 2018 white paper.

“By becoming a tourism-oriented country, we have created a large and robust industry that is driving regional revitalization throughout Japan,” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe boasted in his annual policy speech in January last year.

But that rosy vision of “a tourism-oriented country” has recently been put in doubt.

Since July, the number of South Korean tourists, typically the second-largest ethnic group among visitors, plummeted by more than 50 percent as nationalistic sentiment in both countries flared up over thorny history and trade issues.

In December, the number of tourists from the country who came to Japan stood at 248,000, down 63.6 percent from the same month in the previous year. Experts had already said it had become impossible for Abe’s government to meet its target of 40 million foreign tourists in 2020.

And then the coronavirus hit. Beijing has taken the extraordinary step to ban all Chinese from going overseas on group tours, effective Jan. 27. The number of Chinese tourists, the largest group by nationality, is expected to fall drastically as a result.

Some experts say the coronavirus crisis is likely to continue for several months, possibly affecting the Tokyo Olympics starting July 24 — a nightmare scenario for Abe, who has tried to use the world’s largest sporting event to promote the Japanese economy and thereby further drum up voters’ support for his government.

According to a simulation by a medical team led by Gabriel Leung, the dean of the University of Hong Kong’s faculty of medicine, the number of infections in five Chinese mega-cities — Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Chongqing — would peak between late April and early May, meaning the crisis would still continue further beyond that period.

“The best case scenario, you would have something … where we go through the spring into the summer, and then it dies down,” David Fisman, a professor at the University of Toronto, was quoted as saying by media reports.

During an Upper House Budget Committee session Wednesday, Liberal Democratic Party member Motoyuki Fujii pointed out it took about six months to contain the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) crisis in 2003, which was caused by a similar virus and infected about 8,000 people and killed 774 from Nov. 2002 to Aug. 2003.

The new coronavirus, which was first officially confirmed in Wuhan on Dec. 31, has already infected at least around 9,800 and killed 213, according to the tally compiled by the South China Morning Post as of Friday.

“I’m concerned. … Now we have exactly about six months before the Olympic Games will start in July,” Fujii said.

“I’d like the government to make its maximum efforts to get rid of the effects of the infectious disease by the time we will have the Olympic Games,” he added.

In response, Seiko Hashimoto, the minister in charge of the Olympics and Paralympics, said that “measures against infectious diseases including the new coronavirus are very important” in organizing the event.

“I believe safety and the sense of security must be ensured to make the Tokyo Olympics successful,” Hashimoto said.

It is still probably too early to predict any effects on the Tokyo Games, as many key details of the new coronavirus still remain unknown.

But the outbreak has also highlighted a legal loophole and Japan’s apparent unpreparedness to deal with serious outbreaks of infectious disease in general.

Medical experts were shocked to learn that a carrier of the novel coronavirus could infect others even during the incubation period, when no symptoms are apparent. However, under the law, quarantine officers are not allowed to force a person showing no symptoms to undergo a medical test to determine whether that person is a carrier of a designated infectious disease.

In fact, two Japanese citizens who arrived at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport from Wuhan on a government-chartered airplane Wednesday refused to be tested for the virus. They went home from the airport and did not stay at a housing facility prepared by the government.

“Two people have refused to undergo a virus test. We tried to persuade them for hours but there was no legally binding power. It’s very regrettable,” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe admitted during an Upper House budget committee session Thursday.

On the political front, a setback in the promotion of inbound tourism is likely to deal a heavy blow to Abe as he struggles to carve out a legacy for his administration, which began in December 2012. Abe’s term as the president of the ruling LDP will expire in September next year.

His Abenomics policy mix consists of three main components: ultraloose monetary easing by the Bank of Japan, aggressive fiscal spending by the government and structural economic reforms, most notably deregulation.

Many economists have regarded monetary easing and fiscal spending as temporary measures to buy time, given the ballooning central government debt.

Structural economic reforms, in particular deregulation, is the key to achieve sustainable growth, they say, and promotion of inbound tourism has been often pointed out as one of the few successful cases of Abe’s structural reform initiatives.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/01/31/national/virus-abes-tourism-goals-tokyo-olympics/#.XjWiJSNCeUk

February 6, 2020 Posted by dunrenard | Japan | 2020 Olympics, Coronavirus | Leave a comment

Coronavirus poses a risk to 2020 Olympics, Tokyo City Governor says

January 30, 2020

With the Olympics approaching in less than six months, Tokyo officials are calling for action to contain the virus

With the 2020 Olympics less than six months away, there is some speculation about the possible risk from the rapidly-spreading coronavirus that has already resulted in the postponement or cancellation of at least four major international competitions. Though the possibility of the Olympics being cancelled seems unthinkable,  Tokyo City Governor Yuriko Koike was quoted yesterday by an Associated Press reporter as commenting: “With only 177 days to go and our preparations accelerating, we must firmly tackle the new coronavirus to contain it, or we are going to regret it.”

The Olympics are scheduled to take place in Tokyo and Sapporo from July 24 to August 9. The Asian Indoor Championships (previously scheduled for February 12 and 13 in Hangzhou, China), Hong Kong Marathon (February 8) and the Gaoligong UTMB ultra (March 21 to 23 in Yunnan, China) have all been cancelled, and the World Indoor Athletics Championships, previously scheduled for March 13 to 15 in Nanjing, China, have been postponed for one year to March, 2021.

According to the World Health Organization, as of yesterday there were 6,065 confirmed cases of coronavirus in 16 countries, almost 6,000 of them in China. Some sources claim there have been 170 deaths, and there have been no deaths outside of China. There are currently three confirmed cases in Canada. Each person infected with the virus could potentially transmit the infection to two or three other people.

Many international public health authorities are downplaying the risk of transmission so as not to induce panic, while discouraging non-essential travel to Wuhan. Meanwhile, sales of surgical masks to reduce the risk of transmission have skyrocketed in many countries.

The postponement of the World Indoor Championships has interesting implications for the Olympics. With the new World Rankings system, championship meets give athletes the chance to accrue points towards Olympic team qualification, giving those who compete at World Indoor Championships a leg up on their compatriots who do not. The one-year postponement means that opportunity is no longer available before the Olympics, so the effect of the postponement is to level the playing field somewhat (assuming the Olympics go ahead as planned).

https://runningmagazine.ca/sections/runs-races/coronavirus-poses-a-risk-to-2020-olympics-tokyo-city-governor-says/

February 1, 2020 Posted by dunrenard | Japan | 2020 Olympics, Coronavirus | Leave a comment