Suga says there will be an Olympic Games despite the third and worst wave of COVID in Japan

The Prime Minister of Japan, Yoshihide Suga, last Wednesday at a press conference.

Tokyo, Jan 18 – The Prime Minister of Japan, Yoshihide Suga, assured this Monday that his country remains committed to holding the Olympic Games scheduled for next July, despite going through its third and worst wave of COVID -19, which especially affects Tokyo.
“We are going to prepare the Olympics as proof that humanity has overcome the new coronavirus,” Suga said during a speech on the occasion of the opening today of the ordinary session of the Japanese parliament, the Diet, in the new year.

“We will carry out the preparations with the determination to adopt all possible measures against the infection and hold a competition that brings hope and courage to everyone,” added the president.
Suga’s statements about the Games are in line with the position held by the country so far and come at a time of renewed concern about the future of the Olympic event six months after its celebration, scheduled for July 23, after a series of comments at the national and international level that have generated uncertainty.

On the eve, the spokesman for the Japanese Executive, Katsunobu Kato, insisted on a television program that preparations are going ahead, with the selection of places and times made and the staff working on the adoption of anti-COVID measures, according to statements collected by the local Kyodo news agency.
Kato’s words came after several international media quoted an interview in a virtual forum of the minister in charge of administrative and regulatory reform, Taro Kono, in which he said that the future of the Games could go “in any direction.” They were the first comments from a member of Suga’s Cabinet that questioned the quote.

In his speech today, the Japanese prime minister advocated to bring COVID under control “as soon as possible” with the measures that are being implemented under the current state of emergency that affects eleven provinces of the archipelago, and promised to be “in front line of this battle “against the virus.
The 72-year-old president reiterated his government’s intention to begin vaccination against the disease at the end of February at the earliest, after the relevant processes for its approval in the country, and affirmed that he himself will use it to “serve as example “and clearing skepticism among the population.

Japan has experienced a worrying increase in COVID cases since November that led the Government to declare a second state of emergency since January 8 that currently affects 11 of the country’s 47 prefectures, in which more than half of its population and around 80% of the contagions recorded.
About 40% of the 328,294 cases and 4,501 deaths linked to the pathogen (excluding those from the Diamond Princess cruise ship) have been accounted for in the last month.
In Tokyo alone, local authorities reported 1,204 more positives today, the second highest figure released on Monday.