Photo/Illutration The National Stadium, the main venue for the Tokyo Paralympics (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Health experts and education board members are opposing the Tokyo Paralympic organizer’s insistence of inviting more than 100,000 schoolchildren to attend the events while COVID-19 cases are spiking around the nation.

“The (infection) situation is very bad,” Shigeru Omi, chairman of the government panel of experts dealing with the novel coronavirus pandemic, said at an out-of-session Upper House Cabinet Committee meeting on Aug. 19.

Asked by a lawmaker about the invitation to children to the venues, Omi said, “If the (organizer) really thinks about what allowing in spectators could mean, (it) will reach a natural conclusion.”

General spectators have been banned from attending the competitions, but children attending certain schools have been invited.

Four of the five members of the Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education expressed their objections to the plan at a meeting on Aug. 18, citing the virus surge in the capital.

According to the education board, the invitees are part of a cooperative program between elementary and junior high schools and the Games’ organizer.

Currently, about 130,000 people in eight municipalities have indicated a willingness to watch a Paralympic event live, the board said.

Additionally, around 2,000 people from 23 metropolitan schools plan to attend the Games.

The number of venues they are scheduled to visit is 12, the board said.

The Games’ organizer has stressed the program’s importance of providing an educational experience to children.

But local governments will make the final decision on whether students in their jurisdictions can attend while the capital and neighboring prefectures are under a COVID-19 state of emergency.

“The (current) infection situation is worse than that during the Olympics,” said board member Kaori Yamaguchi, a former board member of the Japanese Olympic Committee. “I have concerns about infection-prevention measures.”

Another board member, Noriko Arai, a professor at the National Institute of Informatics, said: “The risk of 130,000 people going to watch the (Paralympics) when community transmission is spreading is huge.

“I think it would be preferable if they watched the (events) on television.”

Another member, Yuto Kitamura, a professor at the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Education, did not attend the meeting.

But he said in a message that he wants people who wish to watch the Games in person to be “given the opportunity.”

Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike on Aug. 19 told reporters that she will consider the board members’ opinions but indicated the plan will go ahead.

“I will proceed with preparations so that the children can watch the Paralympic athletes in a safe and secure manner,” Koike said.

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