Coronavirus Update: Tokyo Olympics 2020 Under Threat, Sports Events Cancelled Or Moved

International Business Times ^ | 02/17/2020+ | Arthur Villasanta

[SeekAndFind]

The highest profile casualty of the raging Covid-19 outbreak might yet be the 2020 Summer Olympic Games set to open in Tokyo, Japan on July 24, and Japanese prime minister Abe Shinzo is moving heaven and earth to ensure this disaster doesn't occur.

Since the end of January, PM Abe has gone on a high-profile media blitz to ensure countries, athletes and millions of Olympic tourists of their safety from Covid-19 in the Summer Games, which start July 24 and ends August 9 at different venues around the country.

Abe's consistent message: the Tokyo Olympics won't be postponed. On February 6, Abe told the Diet, or Japan's parliament, the 2020 Olympics won't be canceled or postponed despite fears about Covid-19 infections.

“I want to make it clear that the Organizing Committee and the International Olympic Committee are not holding any discussions whatsoever about whether or not to hold the Tokyo Games,” Abe emphasized.

Despite this, both in and outside the Olympics, the Covid-19 scare has led to the postponement or movement to another country of a number of international sports events. Among the more recent changes:

* The IOC announced Jordan as hosts of the boxing qualifiers for Asia and Oceania after the event in Wuhan was cancelled. The qualifiers will now take place in Amman from March 3 to 11.

* The International Basketball Federation moved the Feb. 6-9 Tokyo Olympics qualifiers to be held in Foshan to Belgrade, Serbia.

A four-team women's Olympic qualifying tournament involving China, Australia, Taiwan and Thailand was moved from Wuhan to Australia.

* The World Athletics Indoor Championships scheduled in Nanjing from March 13 to 15 has been postponed to 2021.

* Formula One organizers have postponed the Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai on April 19.

[dp0622]

the event in Wuhan was cancelled...

Good move! Definitely a good move!

The thing is that if Asians are more susceptible, as “experts” are saying, then it could spread kinda fast there.

I hope it doesn’t.

And no I don’t understand the genetic reason why they are more predisposed even though I read the article twice :)

[Sans-Culotte]

“I want to make it clear that the Organizing Committee and the International Olympic Committee are not holding any discussions whatsoever about whether or not to hold the Tokyo Games,” Abe emphasized.

Yeah, right.

[discostu]

Probably not. Really 5 months from now this will either be a massive pandemic (almost certainly not) or burned out (like all the other panics). Olympics will be fine, or a whole lotta stuff more important than them will be canceled.

[Vigilanteman]

The difference in sanitation between China and Japan is like night and day.

[null and void]

...and the band played on.

Bring Out Your Dead

Post to me or FReep mail to be on/off the Bring Out Your Dead ping list.

The purpose of the “Bring Out Your Dead” ping list (formerly the “Ebola” ping list) is very early warning of emerging pandemics, as such it has a high false positive rate.

So far the false positive rate is 100%.

At some point we may well have a high mortality pandemic, and likely as not the “Bring Out Your Dead” threads will miss the beginning entirely.

*sigh* Such is life, and death...

If a quarantine saves just one child's life, it's worth it.

[cgbg]

Yup—either the Olympics will happen (which means everything is fine) of they won’t (which means the epidemic means business).

[VanShuyten]

You want to know what the 2020 Olympics will look like? Take a look at the stadium photos when ROK played a friendly soccer game in North Korea.

[themidnightskulker]

Not to sound all “WOO-WOO”, but Tom Clancy wrote about a bio attack at the Olympics.

[dfwgator]

Take a look at the stadium photos when ROK played a friendly soccer game in North Korea.

Or any FC Dallas home game.....Sadly I am one of the few that actually does go to their games.

[calenel]

“The thing is that if Asians are more susceptible”

So far one report based on an admittedly incomplete study, but which looks to have been reverse-engineered from the limited data available.

Not saying it’s false, but I would wait for more reliable studies and assume *everybody* is extremely susceptible.

[LibWhacker]

[xp38]

Are there scalpers and if so is it easy to get below cost tix?

[GOPJ]

People who think this virus won’t effect the financial machinery of the world are delusional...

[caww]

China’s already worried it will not meet it’s trade deals.

[sauropod]

.

[chajin]

If necessary PRC could be kept from attending, but five months is an eternity in the life cycle of a virus.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: If necessary PRC could be kept from attending

That would really suck, since PRC has some of the best athletes in the world in various sports...

[Jane Long]

LOL!! That’s a good mash up of Koontz book Wuhan page 353 and Sylvia Browne’s EoD prediction.

[Monitor]

Rainbow 6