By TARO ONO/ Staff Writer
June 28, 2021 at 16:33 JST
The Olympic logo and the National Stadium, seen in the background, in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward on June 23 (Toshiyuki Hayashi)
The government will ask athletes from six nations where the Delta variant is raging to be tested daily for COVID-19 for a week prior to departure for Japan to attend the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics.
The new measure targets athletes from India, where the highly transmissible variant of the novel coronavirus first emerged, as well as Sri Lanka, Nepal, Pakistan, Maldives and Afghanistan.
The government currently requires all athletes visiting Japan for the Games to undergo COVID-19 tests twice within 96 hours before leaving their countries or regions. They will be tested again upon arrival and each day after that, in principle.
Athletes from the six countries will be subject to the new requirement, in addition to the current ones.
The government will also ask them not to come into contact with people other than their fellow athletes and coaches they will be traveling with within a week before departure and three days after arrival.
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