Photo/Illutration The uniforms to be worn by volunteers during the medal-awarding ceremonies at the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics ((c) Tokyo 2020)

The Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic organizing committee has yet to decide on a plan to vaccinate some 70 percent of the 70,000 volunteers for the Games against the novel coronavirus, according to sources.

Tamayo Marukawa, minister in charge of the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games, previously announced that the organizers are considering inoculating all the volunteers.

But Toshiro Muto, the CEO of the organizing committee, admitted on June 10, “It will probably be difficult to (vaccinate) them all.”

The organizing committee plans to use vaccine doses provided for free by the International Olympic Committee to inoculate about 9,000 volunteers who will likely come into contact with athletes, according to government sources.

The organizing committee also expects that some 7,500 volunteers who are health care workers or senior citizens will receive shots in the government’s vaccination program and that about 4,600 will likely be inoculated at their workplaces, the sources said.

But the organizing committee has yet to find a way to vaccinate the remaining 50,000 or so volunteers, according to the sources.

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