Will COVID Shutdown The Olympics?

The 2020 Tokyo Olympics are scheduled to start on July 23, but Japan is currently seeing a surge in new cases, and it isn’t impossible for the plug to be pulled on the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, once again. CNN states, “Tokyo 2020 CEO Toshiro Muto isn’t ruling out a last minute cancellation of the Olympic Games amid rising Covid-19 cases.” Certainly, this would be devastating to the athletes that have already been forced to postpone their once in a lifetime experience; however, the government has to have a point where the greater good becomes more important than a few week event, right?

As reported by CNN, “Tokyo reported 1,387 new Covid-19 cases on Tuesday, the city’s second-highest daily increase of new cases since January 21, according to Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s website.” There is no doubt that there’s a connection to the Olympics and the surge of cases that have been occurring in Japan in the past couple weeks. We are also seeing an increase in cases within the athletes. That number is up to 70 confirmed cases now.

The Olympics created a “bubble,” much like the NBA bubble that was in effect during the 2020 season. Dr. Kenji Shibuya, a public health expert in Tokyo, discussed with CNN, “Visitors, athletes, journalists, delegates, of course they are supposed to be within the bubble, but it’s not working well.” Surely, it would be hard to contain people within a bubble, especially if people are vaccinated and don’t feel like they need to follow that mandate.

The Tokyo Olympics are allowing for athletes to arrive a maximum of 5 days prior to their event, and must leave within 48 hours of their event concluding. Because some athletes are missing the ceremony and forced to leave before the conclusion of the games, the Olympics expect a handful of athletes to pull out of their event in the next couple days.

It will be interesting to see if the Olympic Games will find it’s way through, or if we will, once again, be delayed another year.