An infectious disease specialist, Professor Kentaro Iwata, has gone public to warn organizers against hosting the Olympics as Japan battles COVID.
Tokyo is in a state of emergency right now due to rising virus cases. He accuses the Olympic heads of putting ‘financial incentives’ above public health.
And not only does global health expert Michael Head agree that the Games should be postponed (again) but a recent poll showed that 80% of Japanese vote to cancel or postpone the Olympics as well.
The fear is that bringing athletes and spectators coming from around the world — up to 90,000 people are expected — could turn Japan into a ‘coronavirus hot zone.’
‘This is not the right time and place to hold the Olympic Games. When we talk about the matter of should or should not, my answer is should not,’ said Iwata.
‘But if you ask the question can or cannot, then yes, you can hold an Olympics if you just forget about all of the risks surrounding it and completely ignore the potential dangers.
And as a Stanford University infectious disease specialist put it succinctly:
“You bring a lot of people together, and then you ship them back all over the world: That’s the perfect way to transmit.”