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Fifty days from Thursday, if IOC president Thomas Bach tunes out the flak, the Olympic cauldron will be lit at Japan National Stadium, belatedly opening Tokyo's pandemic Summer Games.
There's an urgent argument that these rescheduled Olympics shouldn't begin on July 23. Half of the United States and Canada has received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose, but the world is still mired in the health crisis that postponed the 2020 competition for a full year. The virus that's killed more than 3.5 million people globally is infecting 3,000 people per day in Japan, where fewer than 10% of the population has been jabbed.