The more than 15,000 athletes slated to compete in the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games this July will each need to be tested twice for the coronavirus before boarding a flight to Japan and be tested daily after their arrival. But they will not be asked to isolate themselves after landing in the country and nor will vaccinations be mandatory.
These are a few of the tentative guidelines that organizers released Wednesday evening in the second version of their “playbook,” a 60-page booklet for athletes that provides an outline of the coronavirus measures they will be subjected to during their stay in Japan.
Less than three months remain until the opening ceremony and the finer details of how organizers intend to host the global sporting event during an ongoing pandemic are slowly but surely beginning to take shape. What’s also becoming clear is the added burden it will have on Japan’s health care system and the risk it poses to the domestic population.