The fate of world’s biggest sporting event, the Olympic Games, looks uncertain with coronavirus fast spreading across host Japan. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has said no decision has been taken on the future of Olympic Games, but Japan has insisted there is no plan to drop the Games, which is scheduled to start on July 24 and run through August 9 in Tokyo.
On Thursday, the WHO said no decision has been made to cancel the major sporting event in the midst of the coronavirus outbreak. “To my understanding, no decision has or will be taken in the near term regarding the future of the Olympics,” Dr Mike Ryan, the head of WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme told reporters.
A day later on Friday, news agency Reuter quoted an official from Japan saying, Tokyo has no Plan B for this year’s Summer Olympics despite alarm over the spread of the coronavirus. “There will not be one bit of change in holding the Games as planned,” Katsura Enyo, deputy director general of the Tokyo 2020 Preparation Bureau at the city Government, told Reuters.
The number of coronavirus cases refuses to decline in Japan -- with over 186 cases of infection and five deaths and has already announced closure of all its schools for several weeks. Japan has become the second country after China to close all schools in the face of the outbreak. The total number of confirmed cases globally has reached more than 83,000, with at least 2,869 deaths.
Japanese officials might be posing bold face, but if the outbreak continued unabated there is little hope that the Olympic Games could take place as scheduled.
The virus has entered into a new alarming scenario in some nations like the US and Germany where cases of contracted pathogen are being reported with no clues as to where it came from.
This poses threat to the densely populated countries like India which has so far kept the deadly virus at bay. Indian authorities have been screening travelers at airports, seaports and border crossings. As a preventive measure to strengthen its response to combat the outbreak, if any, India on Friday announced holding a series of training sessions of trainers at the Central and State level from next month.
Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary (Health Ministry) in a letter written on Friday to the States asked to ensure surveillance, infection prevention and control.
The three persons confirmed with the infection, all in Kerala, have been discharged from hospital.
However, a new crisis lurks on the Iranian front with Indian nationals complaining of large scale cancellation of air tickets after India restricted entry of Iranian airlines into India.
Iran has reported over 26 deaths, the highest outside China. The first cases in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Estonia involved people who had been in Iran.
In fact, with virus spreading to more than 50 nations, the WHO has already cautioned that the international spread of the COVID-19 showed it had “pandemic potential.”
