The head of Japan’s Olympics organising committee ruled out on Thursday another suspension of the Games, despite deep disquiet at the prospect of thousands of athletes and officials arriving during a fourth wave of COVID-19 infections in the country.
Already postponed from last year at the cost of an extra $3.5 billion, a scaled-down version of the Games, with no foreign spectators, is set to start on July 23.
But with a slow vaccine rollout, Tokyo and nine other regions under a state of emergency, and rising numbers of severe coronavirus cases, most Japanese oppose hosting the Olympics.
Most of the capital’s city council, the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly, agree, the Tokyo Shimbun paper reported on Thursday.
Illustrating the public anxiety, residents in one training venue, Ota City, were furious over a decision to give preferential vaccinations to staff attending to visiting Australian softball players, media also said.