Photo/Illutration Spectators cheer as a torch bearer prepares to run through a street in Amami, Kagoshima Prefecture, on April 27. (Satoshi Okumura)

Organizers of an Olympic torch relay held in southern Japan said May 1 that six local government officials had tested positive for novel coronavirus infection.

The April 27 event was held in Kirishima and Amami on Amami-Oshima island in Kagoshima Prefecture, which is now reeling from its first cluster infection.

All six officials helped to control spectator traffic during the relay.

Three of them are Kirishima municipal government employees. The others worked in the city of Amami, including two Amami municipal employees in their 20s and 30s.

The two city employees in Amami were among a cluster of nine infections that flared at an eatery there.

The three in Kirishima worked in offices at separate locations. Their daily duties did not require them to come into close contact with local residents, according to city officials.

The Tokyo Olympics organizing committee called on local governments and entities involved in torch relays to strictly follow anti-coronavirus guidelines.

“We are trying to take all necessary steps to ensure the Olympic torch relays can be carried out safely,” a committee official said.

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