News

Coronavirus outbreak would make Tokyo Olympics ‘difficult’ to manage, virologist warns

The coronavirus outbreak would likely throw a wrench in the Tokyo Olympics if the games were to be held there now, a respected Japanese virologist said Wednesday.

Dr. Hitoshi Oshitani, a professor of virology at Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine in Sendai, said that “we need to find the best way to have a safe Olympics.”

“Right now we don’t have an effective strategy, and I think it may be difficult to have the Olympics [now],” Oshitani said at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan. “But by the end of July, we may be in a different situation.”

The local Tokyo Olympic organizing committee and the International Olympic Committee have recently reiterated that they are following the advice of the World Health Organization and the summer games — scheduled for July 24 through Aug. 9 — will go on as scheduled.





However, Oshitani, a former World Health Organization adviser who worked on the SARS outbreak nearly 20 years ago, said nothing is certain.

“I’m not sure [of] the situation in Japan at the end of July,” he said. “But probably we will not have large outbreaks in Japan in July.”

While more than 74,000 people have been infected with COVID-19 and over 2,000 killed in mainland China, according to new figures, only one death in Japan has been attributed to the virus.





View Gallery













Oshitani’s biggest concern, he said, is having a “Wuhan-type” outbreak in Africa or other parts of Asia, with cases imported into Japan. In that case, he said, “it may get difficult to have” the Olympics — though he suggested Japan might be able to handle it.





“So what we have to do now is try to prevent such a thing from happening,” he added, explaining that the Japanese government should support other countries to prevent “that kind of situation.”

Shigeru Omi, a former WHO regional director and infectious disease expert from Japan, said earlier this week that time will tell whether the Olympics will go on.

“Whether the outbreak will last until the Olympic date or not depends upon the virus and the societal effort and joint international community,” he said at a news conference. “Nobody can predict whether we can contain the virus or put an end to this outbreak before the Olympics start. That’s anybody’s guess.”





The fate of the Olympics is not a “big question mark,” he said. “But there is a question mark.”

The 1916 Summer Olympics were canceled because of World War I, and both the Summer and Winter Olympics of 1940 and 1944 were canceled due to World War II. In 1980 and 1984, they went on despite boycotts.

With Post wires





Share this: