(Reuters) – A senior official of Japan’s ruling party said yesterday that canceling this year’s Olympics in Tokyo remains an option if a coronavirus crisis becomes too severe.
The Tokyo Olympics Organizing Committee responded with a statement saying that everyone involved in preparing for the Games remains fully focused on hosting them in the summer.
“If it seems impossible (to host the Olympics) anymore, then we definitely have to stop it,” said Toshihiro Nikai, secretary general of the Liberal Democratic Party, in comments to broadcaster TBS.
Canceling “of course” is an option, he said, adding: “If the Olympics spread an infection, then what is the purpose of the Olympics?”
With Japan at the center of a fourth wave of coronavirus infections, doubts over whether Tokyo could host the Summer Games – already an unpopular idea with the public – have resurfaced in recent weeks.
Government and organizing officials have consistently said that the Games would go ahead.
“We don’t guess,” a spokesman for the International Olympic Committee said yesterday. “We are fully focused and committed to successfully delivering the Tokyo 2020 Olympics this year, and working at full speed towards the opening ceremony on July 23.”
But the fact that a party controlling heavyweight made the comment was enough to give its comments on domestic news the best.
NIKAI EXPLANATION
“Canceled Olympics” was trending on Twitter in Japan with nearly 50,000 tweets from users yesterday afternoon.
“If this person says it, canceling the Olympics looks like reality,” @marumaru_clm tweeted referring to Nikai, a key supporter of Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and known for his honest comments.
“Hello! This is great! Finally, it is canceled, canceled, canceled!” Another user tweeted, @ haruha3156.
Nikai later issued a written statement to clarify his stance.
“I want the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics to succeed,” the statement said. “At the same time, to the question of whether we would hold the (Games) no matter what, that’s not true. That’s what I meant by my comments. ”
Prime Minister Suga later stepped down a reporter’s question about whether cancellation was indeed an option, saying only that the government remains committed to managing the pandemic ahead of the Olympics.
“There is no change in the government’s stance, to do everything possible to prevent the spread of infections as we head towards the Olympics,” he told reporters in Tokyo ahead of his trip to Washington to meet with US President Joe Biden.
INFECTIONS REVIEW
Japan is tackling increasing COVID-19 infections, with new cases in Tokyo jumping to 729 on Thursday, the largest since early February.
Tokyo, Osaka and several other prefectures went into a semi-crisis this month, asking bars and restaurants to shorten their hours, and four other prefectures were about to be added, local media reported.
Asked for Nikai’s comments, the Tokyo Olympic organizing committee said in a statement: “Prime Minister Suga has repeatedly expressed the government’s commitment to host the 2020 Tokyo Games.
“All our delivery partners including the national government, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, the Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee, the IOC (International Olympic Committee) and the IPC (International Paralympic Committee) are fully focused on hosting the Games this summer. ”
Preparations have included the incorporation of social isolation measures and other restrictions for the Deferred Games, which will begin July 23 and take place without international viewers.
A back up torch relay is already underway.
“We will conduct (the Games) in a practical way,” Taro Kono, a popular minister in charge of Japan’s vaccination campaign, said on a separate television program, according to Kyodo News. “That can be without viewers,” he added.
Japan’s chief medical adviser, Shigeru Omi, acknowledged that the pandemic had entered a fourth wave, driven by mutant stress, with Kyoto University professor Hiroshi Nishiura urging in a magazine commentary that the Olympics should be postponed.
Akira Koike, an opposition legislator with the Communist Party of Japan, responded to Nikai’s comments on Twitter saying that holding the event was already “impossible” and that a quick decision on cancellation should be made.
The cancellation or postponement of the Games would probably not hurt Japan’s economy much, but it would have a greater impact on Tokyo’s services sector, a senior International Monetary Fund official said Wednesday.