This sports extravaganza, originally scheduled for the summer of 2020, has already been postponed once. Tokyo will be well advised to push it further down the calendar to 2022.
With less than two months to go before the Tokyo Olympics kick off on 23 July, Japan has been hit by a fourth wave of covid. Its second-largest city of Osaka is witnessing an explosion of cases that has overwhelmed its healthcare infrastructure, with beds, ventilators and essential drugs running short and doctors struggling to cope with it. On Monday, news emerged that its army had been deployed to conduct vaccinations.
Any event that requires thousands of people to converge from almost every country in the world and then disperse is bound to be highly risky from a pandemic perspective. Japan’s recent spike in cases has only raised anxiety levels. The host country was once seen to be doing better than others in keeping infections under control. But its vulnerability has risen sharply. Less than 5% of its population has reportedly been inoculated so far, and even emergency rapid-jab camps run by its armed forces may not be able to create the requisite rings of safety in time for the games. This sports extravaganza, originally scheduled for the summer of 2020, has already been postponed once. Tokyo will be well advised to push it further down the calendar to 2022.
Courtesy - Livemint.
0 comments:
Post a Comment