Japan declared another state of emergency on Thursday because of a rise in coronavirus cases, further complicating the Olympics Games set to take place there in the coming weeks.
According to The New York Times:
Addressing reporters on Thursday night, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga acknowledged the challenge the country faced as the more contagious Delta variant had begun to circulate. He warned about the danger of the virus spreading beyond Tokyo as people traveled home for the summer holidays.
But at the same time, Mr. Suga pledged to deliver an Olympic Games that would go down in history not as another victim of the pandemic, but as an example of fortitude in the face of adversity.
Viewers will be tuning in from around the world, he said, and “I want to transmit to them a message from Tokyo about overcoming hardship with effort and wisdom.”
The Olympics Games organizers then held a meeting Thursday to decide whether to allow spectators. “Organizers had already banned international viewers from attending and set a cap on domestic viewers at 50% of capacity, or up to 10,000 people,” per CNBC.
The Olympic organizers announced Thursday that spectators would not be allowed to attend most events. As The Associated Press reported, “Fans from aboard were banned months ago, and the new measures will clear venues around Tokyo — indoor and outdoor — of any fans at all.”
The state of emergency will start on July 12 and go through August 22, with the Olympic Games set to be held from July 23 to August 8.
The decision to go forward with the Games in Japan has been a fraudulent one as some citizens of the country have reportedly been uneasy with the idea of holding the events. The International Olympic Committee president, Thomas Bach, however, came to Tokyo on Thursday after previously canceling a past trip to the city earlier this year after it went into a state of emergency.
He spoke Thursday night before the meeting of the Olympic organizers, and “said that the strict measures taken by Japan to prevent athletes and other participants from spreading the virus ‘have proven to be successful.’”
Going forward, he said, “we’ll support any measure which is necessary to have a safe and secure Olympic and Paralympic Games for the Japanese people and all the participants.”
According to information from the World Health Organization, “from 3 January 2020 to 11:54am CEST, 8 July 2021, there have been 811,712 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 14,897 deaths.”
The country has not had as fast of a vaccine rollout as other nations, however, which could complicate infections and make people more hesitant to host large gatherings. The WHO added, “As of 24 June 2021, a total of 37,214,200 vaccine doses have been administered.” According to Worldometer, Japan has a population of over 126 million people.
As CNBC noted, sports channels such as those on NBCUniversal, CNBC’s parent company, must now figure out how to get viewers to tune in when there are no spectators in the stands. The financial hit will also be a struggle for the Games. “More than six million tickets were sold for 2016 Rio Games, bringing in roughly $1.2 billion, according to an IOC annual report,” per CNBC.
As CNBC disclosed, “CNBC parent NBCUniversal owns NBC Sports and NBC Olympics. NBC Olympics is the U.S. broadcast rights holder to all Summer and Winter Games through 2032.”