Covid-19 News: Japan extends virus emergency until month before Games extra.cw - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from extra.cw Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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A state of emergency in Japan is set to continue until just weeks before the Olympics, as COVID-19 cases there remain high.
The Japanese government on Friday announced it would extend the state of emergency in Tokyo and eight other prefectures until June 20,
The New York Times reports. Japan has been experiencing a fourth wave of COVID-19, reporting over 4,000 infections a day, although the number of new cases has been in decline The newly reported cases are on a downward trend, but they are still at a high level, government minister Yasutoshi Nishimura said, per the
May 28, 2021 Share
TOKYO A physician representing a Japanese medical body warned Thursday that holding the postponed Tokyo Olympics in two months could lead to the spread of variants of the coronavirus.
Dr. Naoto Ueyama, chairman of the Japan Doctors Union, said the International Olympic Committee and the Japanese government had underestimated the risks of bringing 15,000 Olympic and Paralympic athletes into the country, joined by tens of thousands of officials, judges, media and broadcasters from more than 200 countries and territories.
“Since the emergence of COVID-19 there has not been such a dangerous gathering of people coming together in one place from so many different places around the world,” he said, speaking in Tokyo at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan. “It’s very difficult to predict what this could lead to.”
Even though polls show the great majority of Japanese want to cancel the Tokyo Summer Olympics because of the risk of COVID-19 infections, Japan s prime minister insists the games will go on.