Just how high a price are the citizens of Japan willing to pay for the privilege of hosting the Olympics? That question is getting a partial answer this month as a series of baseball games are being hosted — with government approval — in crowded stadiums.
Various measures to protect spectators are being tested out, including smartphone apps that issue warnings about which parts of a stadium are crowded at any given moment.
But if these measures fail, Japanese citizens will be left to manage the aftereffects of a possible superspreader event — and to wonder why the government would ever undertake such a costly experiment.