It will come into effect on Monday 12 July to curb the rise in cases of COVID-19 in the Japanese capital

The Olympic Games will be held behind closed doors in Tokyo due to the spike in contagions and after decreeing a new state of emergency.

photo_camera PHOTO/KYODO NEWS via AP - Japan's Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga speaks to the media in front of the Olympic Games mascots

The Japanese Prime Minister, Yoshihide Suga, decided Thursday to re-declare a state of emergency in the Tokyo area, an alert that will be in force until August 22 and will coincide with the celebration of the Olympic Games. Immediately after the organizers of the Tokyo Olympics decided today to hold the event without public in the stands due to the spike of contagions in the capital, and reversing the measure announced two weeks ago to have up to 10,000 spectators in the stadiums.

The Japanese Minister in charge of the Games, Tamayo Marukawa, announced this unprecedented restriction in an Olympic event after the meeting held on Thursday between those responsible for the organization and representatives of the international Olympic and Paralympic committees.

The decision to ban the presence of spectators in Tokyo was taken shortly after the Japanese Prime Minister, Yoshihide Suga, announced the implementation of a new state of health emergency for coronavirus in the capital, which will coincide with the celebration of the Games.

The head of the organizing committee, Seiko Hashimoto, said during the meeting that in order to prevent an expansion of the contagions "it is necessary to send a strong and clear message", and pointed out that those responsible for the event had to "make a difficult decision".

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IOC President Thomas Bach said for his part that the organizers "have shown responsibility since the day the Games were postponed," and said he would support "whatever measures are necessary to hold a safe Olympic and Paralympic Games for the Japanese people and all participants."

Bach participated in the meeting telematically after arriving in Tokyo on Thursday, and as he observes a three-day quarantine at his hotel before attending the final stretch of preparations for the Games, scheduled to open on the 23rd.

Last June 21, the organizers announced that the Games would be held with a maximum of 10,000 spectators in the stands, although they indicated that they reserved the option of holding the competitions behind closed doors in case of contagion outbreaks.

That measure went against the recommendations of the experts, who warned that the movement of people that the Games will bring combined with the circulation of new variants of the virus would pose an excessive risk, so they recommended holding the event without the public.

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Today's decision affects Tokyo and three other neighboring prefectures that will host the bulk of the competitions, plus Hokkaido (north), although the minister for the Games said the public could be allowed to enter other venues located in Shizuoka, Fukushima and Miyagi, which will host sports such as cycling, baseball and soccer.

The organizers, who also decided months ago to ban foreign visitors from entering the country during the Games, planned to earn some 800 million dollars (670 million euros) from the sale of tickets for the Games.

The state of emergency will come into force on Monday, July 12, to curb the increase in cases of COVID-19 in the capital, Suga said after meeting with the government committee that manages the pandemic, although in practice the measure will not mean much change with the current situation, apart from a tightening of restrictions for businesses.

The Asian country also decided to extend the alert level in the Okinawa region (southwest), where it was already active, and to maintain certain restrictions in the prefectures of Chiba, Saitama and Kanagawa, adjacent to Tokyo and where Games competitions will also be held.

In Osaka Prefecture (west) the measures will also be maintained, while in five other provinces (Hokkaido, Kyoto, Aichi, Hyogo and Fukuoka) they will be lifted as of Monday.

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Organizers of the event, scheduled to open on July 23, have never ruled out holding competitions behind closed doors depending on the epidemic situation, however, they recently announced that they planned to allow up to 10,000 spectators or half the capacity of the venues. The decision to hold the Games without spectators puts an end to the uncertainty and is prompted by the increase in contagions.

Representatives of the Japanese organizing committee, the International Olympic and Paralympic Committees, the Tokyo authorities and the Japanese central government are scheduled to meet later this week to discuss the matter and reach a decision.

The Japanese government had initially planned to maintain certain restrictions without declaring the maximum alert level during the atypical international sports competition, which was postponed for a year because of the pandemic, but has been forced to change its position due to the sharp increase in infections in the capital.

Tokyo recorded on Thursday a daily figure of 896 new cases of COVID, after counting 920 the day before, a number not recorded since May, when the previous state of emergency was still in place in the most populated areas of the territory.
 

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