Countdown begins for Tokyo Games

Tokyo: Tick-Tock-Tick. The countdown clock for the postponed Tokyo Olympics hit 200 days to go on Monday. Also on Monday, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said he would consider calling a state of emergency as new Coronavirus cases surge to record numbers in Tokyo and

neighboring prefectures. Japan has never had a lockdown for Covid-19, attempting

to juggle the economy and health risks. It’s nearing deadline time for Tokyo Olympic organisers, the International Olympic Committee, and various Japanese government entities as they try to pull off the Games in the middle of a

pandemic. Officials have promised to announce concrete plans early in the new year about how to

get 15,000 Olympic and Paralympic athletes into Japan; about the safety of the Athletes Village, and hundreds of thou

sands of fans, media, judges, officials, broadcasters and VIPs.

The new year is here. Suga pledged again to hold the Olympics, saying it would be proof that people have overcome the Coronavirus. And he said vaccine approval would be speeded up by a month so that vaccinations could begin in February instead of March. Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike and the governors of Saitama, Chiba and Kanagawa prefectures asked the national government Saturday to declare the state of emergency after the capital saw a daily record

of 1,337 new cases on New Year’s Eve. That marked a jump of almost 400 in just a

few days. —