Top virologist warns of Olympics Covid risk

It is impossible to hold the Tokyo Olympics without the risk of a superspreader event, an expert adviser on the pandemic to the Japanese government says in a new challenge to the decision to go ahead with the Games.

Professor Hitoshi Oshitani, one of Japan’s most senior virologists, said ‘‘everybody knows’’ promises of a ‘‘safe Olympics’’ were impossible to make, but the Olympic authorities were failing to release essential data that would allow experts to assess the risks.

In the frankest remarks so far by a senior adviser, he said the Games risked introducing infection into Japan, especially from poorer countries where the pandemic was still raging, and then re-exporting it around the world.

He expressed doubts about the capacity of the Olympic authorities to fulfil their promises to carry out daily testing of athletes, and about the mixed messages sent by holding a mass global event in a country whose people are being urged to avoid travel and crowds.

‘‘I’m very concerned about the consequences of holding the Olympics,’’ Oshitani told The Times. ‘‘The government and the organising committee, including the IOC [International Olympic Committee], keep saying they’re holding a safe Olympics. But everybody knows there is a risk. It’s 100 per cent impossible to have an Olympics with zero risk . . . of the spread of infection in Japan and also in other countries after the Olympics.

‘‘There are a number of countries that do not have many cases, and a number that don’t have any variants. We should not make the Olympics [an occasion] to spread the virus to these countries. There is not much risk to the US and UK where people are vaccinated. But most countries in the world don’t have the vaccine.’’

Oshitani is the latest senior figure to express doubts about the decision to go ahead with the Olympics and Paralympics that will bring in 15,400 athletes and tens of thousands of journalists, officials, sponsors and members of the so-called ‘‘Olympic family’’.

Having suffered relatively few infections last year, Japan is struggling with a fourth wave, which in some places has exceeded the capacity of hospitals. Doctors’ and nurses’ organisations and businessmen have called for the Games to be cancelled.

On Friday, an executive of the Japan Olympic Committee said the Games had ‘‘lost their meaning’’, and Japan had been ‘‘cornered’’ into a situation in which it is ‘‘damned’’ whether it cancels them or lets them go ahead. Kaori Yamaguchi, an Olympic medallist in judo, called on athletes to speak out against the Games.

Last week, the head of the government’s advisory panel, Dr Shigeru Omi, said it was ‘‘not normal’’ to hold an Olympics in a pandemic, and asked: ‘‘Under such circumstances, why is it being held? The purpose is not clear.’’

As a fellow member of the panel, Oshitani, 62, professor of virology at Tohoku University, said his role was to set out the risks, rather than to decide whether the Games would go ahead. However, he added: ‘‘I am frustrated we don’t have the necessary information.’’

Last month, the organising committee said that it had reduced the number of people coming from 141,000 to 59,000. It is not clear whether the failure to supply details is a result of incompetence or unwillingness. If scientists did conclude that the Games were dangerous, it would add to pressure to cancel them. Asked if he thought there is an effort to block a scientific assessment, Oshitani said: ‘‘I don’t know.’’ The Tokyo 2020 organising committee did not respond to a request for comment. – The Times