France Info :
 
Le PDG des Jeux olympiques de Tokyo laisse entendre que les jeux pourraient être mis en doute même en 2021
Alors que le coronavirus se propage au Japon, le directeur général des Jeux de Tokyo a déclaré vendredi qu'il ne pouvait garantir que les Jeux olympiques reportés se tiendraient l'année prochaine - même avec le long retard.
 
"Je ne pense pas que quiconque serait en mesure de dire s'il sera possible de le maîtriser d'ici juillet prochain ou non", a déclaré le PDG du comité d'organisation de Tokyo, Toshiro Muto, s'exprimant par l'intermédiaire d'un interprète lors d'une conférence de presse à distance. "Nous ne sommes certainement pas en mesure de vous donner une réponse claire."

Japanese expert 'very pessimistic' about Olympics happening next year
Justin McCurry
 
A Japanese specialist in infectious diseases has said he is “very pessimistic” about the likelihood of the Tokyo Olympics going ahead next year.
 
Speaking to journalists in an online briefing on Monday, Kentaro Iwata, a professor at Kobe University Hospital, said: “I don’t think the Olympics are likely to be held next year. People will be coming from hundreds of nations ... and although Japan might have the disease under control by next summer, I don’t think that will be the case everywhere.”
 
Iwata, who was critical of the Japanese government’s handling of the Covid-19 outbreak aboard the Diamond Princess cruise liner in February, added: “In that sense I am very pessimistic about holding the Games next summer, unless they are held in a different way, such as with no spectators or in limited numbers.”
 
Japan had rescheduled the Olympics to take place in 2021.
 
Iwata is not the first expert to question Tokyo’s ability to host the Games from 23 July to 8 August, 2021, after the coronavirus outbreak forced local organisers and the International Olympic Committee [IOC] to postpone them for a year.
 
Devi Sridhar, chair of global health at the University of Edinburgh, said last week that hosting the event in just over a year’s time would be “very unrealistic” unless a vaccine became available.
 
“If we do get a vaccine within the next year then actually I think that (the Olympics) is realistic,” Sridhar said, according to the BBC website. “The vaccine will be the game changer - an effective, affordable, available vaccine. If we don’t get a scientific breakthrough then I think that looks very unrealistic.”
 
John Coates, the head of the IOC’s coordination commission, told reporters last week that it was still “too early to say” if the outbreak could further impact the Olympics, including forcing another delay or banning spectators.

As coronavirus cases rise in Japan and in several countries in Europe and the Americas, officials both in Tokyo and with the International Olympic Committee have begun to acknowledge that holding a safe Games might not be possible.

Le « Times » affirme que le gouvernement japonais a secrètement convenu que l'organisation des JO (23 juillet-8 août) était impossible. Tokyo dément fermement.