The Olympics want to tell you everything is going ahead as scheduled despite the world locking itself up to stop COVID-19
The demands of a sporting event with billions in profit that sustain four years of elite sport are increasingly at odds with the reality of social distancing needed to stop the coronavirus pandemic
The statement from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government to Olympics Everywhere was as terse as it could be in response to the question “Is there a date where the TMG decides it must cancel Olympic events if the outbreak is still ongoing?”
“NO.” Replied the Tokyo Metropolitan Government spokesperson.
This response came in last week, as I started to do reporting for this edition of the newsletter. Then, the IOC was inundated with reporters in Lausanne as its executive board met as concerns over the future of Tokyo 2020 mounted with a global outbreak dominating headlines. One IOC member floated the idea that a final decision about Tokyo 2020 would have to come in May if it would go on as planned.
Seeking to alleviate these fears the IOC President Thomas Bach told reporters “in the meeting of the executive board, neither the word cancellation nor the word postponement was even mentioned,” with regard to Tokyo 2020.
Since those words were said the situation has evolved rapidly. Outbreaks have grown in Iran, Italy, and the United States, and sporting events around the world have begun to be played without fans or cancelled all together. Nonessential travel is being grounded, and workers around the world are being told to enforce social distancing as to minimize the spread of COVID-19.
Then, Italy followed the lead of Wuhan, China and locked itself down, except for food stores and pharmacies. This came after the outbreak there began to spread rapidly straining the country’s health system.
Outbreaks in the United States and Western Europe continue to grow at a rapid rate, and health officials are warning that quarantines will be the norm, not the exception to stop the spread of the virus.
Olympic qualifiers for Tokyo 2020 have already begun to be cancelled and postponed, and the latest event to be called off is the 2020 World Figure Skating Championships in Canada. Even the torch lighting ceremony, an event full of pomp and bright colors, will be held without spectators to limit the spread of coronavirus.
According to Kyodo News, the Tokyo 2020 torch relay may even begin without crowds cheering it on along the roads of Japan. That is the entire point of the relay, to bring the Olympic spirit to as many Japanese citizens as possible across the country.
Despite all this, the message from the IOC has been clear: athletes should continue to prepare for Tokyo 2020 as is.
“The IOC participated in a WHO webinar last week and has been cooperating closely with the WHO on this matter as sport events which serve as Olympic qualifiers are affected by the current situation,” an IOC spokesperson told Olympics Everywhere.
“The IOC as leader of the Olympic Movement is committed to have the best advice possible to share with its stakeholders. Other than that, the preparations for the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 continue as planned, as stated by IOC President Thomas Bach during the recent IOC Executive Board meeting.”
Meanwhile, Tokyo 2020 is trying to project calm and continue the narrative that things are on schedule for the Olympics, even with questions about the government’s management of containing the outbreak.
“I believe a coronavirus outbreak will have an impact on the Games; specialists [are] looking into how to deal with it,” Yoshiro Mori, Tokyo 2020 President, said in an impromptu news conference, Reuters reported.
“[However], this is not the time for pessimistic negative thinking.”
Japanese media reported this week that the IOC was exploring the possibility of holding a spectator-less Olympic Games in July and August as part of a working group with Tokyo 2020 set up in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak.
A Tokyo 2020 spokesperson told Olympics Everywhere that the committee would not comment on speculation and provided the following quote when asked if a spectatorless Olympics was being discussed:
“Tokyo 2020 has never discussed cancelling or postponing the Games. Preparations for the Games are continuing as planned."
When asked if Tokyo 2020 intended to screen spectators or provide masks for fans and athletes a spokesperson reiterated that the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and Government of Japan were working together to “pay attention to the virus’ impact and thoroughly respond to them”.
“As of February 4th Tokyo 2020 has established a Novel Coronavirus Countermeasures Task Force under the leadership of CEO Toshiro Muto,” the Tokyo 2020 spokesperson added to Olympics Everywhere. “We have created a framework for periodic updates between Tokyo 2020 and the IOC and will continue to stay in close collaboration. Tokyo 2020 will continue to collaborate with all relevant organisations which carefully monitor any incidence of infectious diseases and we will review any countermeasures that may be necessary with all relevant organisations.”
The Tokyo Metropolitan Government confirmed to Olympics Everywhere that as of last week there was no plan to disseminate masks to spectators for the Torch Relay route, which begins in the next three weeks in Japan. Greek officials have already promised the relay would go through the country “safely” this week.
“We’re working closely to exchange the fact situations of domestic and international cases and discussing on the effective measures against the spread of infection of the novel coronavirus with Tokyo 2020 and the national government at a practical level,” a Tokyo Metropolitan Government spokesperson said to Olympics Everywhere, in the same email where they emphatically said there is no date where a decision to cancel the Olympics would have to be made by.
Countries around the world have employed different measures to try and contain the coronavirus outbreak, with little coordination between them. Some countries such as South Korea have ramped up massive testing programs and worked to track the spread of the virus without banning travel and quarantining the country. Meanwhile, China and Italy were forced to take severe measures limiting the movement of people and thus the spread of disease after a large number of severe cases overwhelmed their hospital systems.
An outbreak is just beginning in the United States, and its scale is not known according to Joshua Michaud, Associate Director of Global Policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation, because of a lack of testing across the country. That leads policy makers exposed to not knowing how truly widespread an outbreak is in the country, making cutting off chains of transmission harder.
Michaud says that countries that have had success in combating the virus have used a combination of social distancing with testing. That means banning large group gatherings and tracking interactions of those who have been infected to quarantine those at risk for contracting the virus. Large countries that have not instituted these measures are at risk for having their epidemics play out over longer periods of time.
COVID-19 is unlike the SARS epidemic of 2003 because it is much more highly contagious, even if it is less deadly. SARS affected the 2003 Women’s World Cup in that it was moved from China to the United States four months before kickoff, and its spread was able to be contained quickly by an international coordinated public health effort.
That effort is not going to help with coronavirus, Michaud says, as the virus is no longer contained in its country of origin.
“It really comes down to each country, taking the steps necessary to control their own domestic epidemics,” Michaud said.
When it comes to the Olympics, any decision is “in kind of a state of limbo,” as the world just doesn’t know how each country will respond to the current epidemics, as the WHO has stepped in to label this outbreak a pandemic.
“I don't know if it's the right time to cancel the Olympics based on what we know,” Michaud added. “But it's certainly something to have plans in place for, contingency plans in case this does become a real problem in a lot of countries. A consideration would have to be given to, you know, canceling or moving the dates of the Games.”
Beyond having a contingency plan, there are also risks for a resurgence of the outbreak during the Games if the full extent of any epidemic in certain countries is not known. The Olympics bring together athletes and officials from over 200 countries worldwide, so regardless of the state of where the coronavirus pandemic is in March, checks will have to be performed in July to prevent a resurgence after the Games.
There still has to be concern in China as it returns to a state of normalcy, Michaud said to make sure that as people are allowed to stop social distancing measures that the disease does not ramp up again.
“There is going to be a constant vigilance needed to make sure that there is not a resurgence method that certainly happens in events such as the Olympics, which is such a large event, bringing so many people from different locations together,” Michaud said.
The concern over whether or not to cancel the Games is certainly justified in certain circles, as the money generated from the Olympic Games funds the entire Olympic enterprise. Most of the IOC’s revenues are generated from selling TV rights at the Olympics, and these revenues are dispersed to National Olympic Committees and International Federations worldwide. For many federations these payments are what keeps the sports viable every four years in between Olympic cycles.
For all the talks of insurance policies, there is a real threat to the entire Olympic movement if one Games is unable to happen due to a non-wartime event. Billions of dollars would no longer change hands for the Olympic movement, and the government of Japan would have spent seven years and tens of billions of dollars for an event that likely couldn’t be rescheduled. There is an element of bad luck in the timing of this event, but what it comes down to is there are so many stakeholders tied to the profits of these Games that the repercussions would be massive.
That motivation is so great for so many people, that the Olympics will likely go on until the public health situation forces their hand to prevent the current pandemic from being contained. There is a lot of talk about guaranteeing the event, but it would be too irresponsible to not have some back up plan in some capacity to stop the Games if it would continue the spread of coronavirus in a way the world could not contain immediately.
The Olympics have weathered public health scares before, notably the Zika virus in 2016 (which I experienced firsthand), but it is important to remember that even if athletes skipped the Games the danger was risking death competing in the Games, but rather on potential decisions regarding pregnancies and future births. Anyone attending a mass gathering in the time of coronavirus risks being a carrier of the disease even if they do not have it, which could transmit it to someone who could fall ill and die.
Tokyo 2020 executive board member Haruyuki Takanashi caused a stir this week when he told The Wall Street Journal that the Olympics would likely not be cancelled, but delayed if the coronavirus was unable to be contained in time. He suggested that the Games could be moved back by one or two years to fit in with the global sports schedule, which is determined years in advance.
Any delay in the Games would certainly upset the profits generated from it in some capacity, and Takanashi mentioned how large American TV rights are for the event.
Tokyo 2020 distanced itself from Takanashi’s statements, and said they were personal opinions of a board member, and not an official statement of the committee. Still, Takanashi emphasized in a clarification to Kyodo News that he will raise the idea of a postponement at an upcoming Tokyo 2020 executive board meeting.
“We need to deal accordingly with (the crisis) based on reality,” Takanashi told Kyodo. “Time is running out."
Another unknown hanging over the Tokyo 2020 preparations is how long it will take to contain aa pandemic. Japanese government officials said this week they could not say how long the response will take, speculating that it could be at least six months to a year until the pandemic is contained, and the government cannot let its foot off the gas in this moment. The Tokyo 2020 Games are currently scheduled to begin in 135 days.