Health care experts are urging the organizers of the Tokyo Paralympics, which opened on Aug. 24, to carry out much tougher and more thorough anti-virus measures than during the Olympics amid a virus surge that many describe as “a disaster.” 

Maintaining the “bubble” designed to keep athletes isolated from the public and testing athletes and staff more often will be vital to lowering the risk of infection spreading in the athletes’ village and elsewhere, they said.

“We have a successful experience from the Olympics, but there needs to be additional measures,” Nobuhiko Okabe, the head of the Kawasaki City Institute for Public Health who served as a special adviser to the Cabinet on infection controls for the Games, told Seiko Hashimoto, the head of the Tokyo organizing committee, at an Aug. 20 meeting.

Even with the bubble, a cluster infection occurred inside the athletes’ village during the Olympics.

The Tokyo Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games has continued to use the bubble system deployed during the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

A total of 770,000 tests for the virus have already been conducted. The positivity rate was 0.03 percent as of Aug. 24.

About 90 percent of those expected to stay in the village for the Paralympics have been vaccinated, the organizer said. 

But some Paralympics participants have pre-existing conditions or weak respiratory functions, and are more likely to develop severe symptoms if they contract the virus.

COVID-19 vaccines can be less effective on people whose immune systems have been weakened by illness or medication.

Health experts have therefore agreed that the Games’ organizer needs to take a tougher approach to protect Paralympians and their helpers.

COVID-19 cases in Japan have also continued to soar since the Olympics were held.

One top organizing committee official expressed fears over “a possibility of the virus being brought in by those who go back and forth from inside and outside the bubble.”

VISITORS TO JAPAN FURTHER CONFINED

The organizer has been counting new COVID-19 cases among Paralympic-related people since Aug. 12.

By Aug. 24, 154 people had tested positive for the virus, 60 percent of whom were related to contractors.

To prevent people who move between the bubble and the outside world from bringing in the virus, the organizer has changed the testing rules.

Under the new guidelines, those who work at the athletes’ village are required to take a COVID-19 test every day instead of every four days, while volunteers are required to do so every four days instead of every seven days.

The organizer is also implementing stronger restrictions on the activities of people coming from outside Japan as part of the Paralympics.

For the Olympics, visitors to Japan connected to the event were allowed to use public transportation and engage in other activities 14 days after their entry to Japan.

For the Paralympics, such people are urged to eat at a Games’ venue or a hotel and not to use public transportation.

CONTRADICTORY MESSAGE SENT

Japan's health care system has been pushed to the brink of collapse as infections spread nationwide.

At the Heisei Tateishi Hospital in Tokyo’s Katsushika Ward, the 40 or so beds available for COVID-19 patients with moderate or less symptoms have been full.

“The situation is different from when the Olympics were held. The medical front is in a mess,” said Shuichi Osaka, the hospital's director.

But Osawa doesn't think canceling the Paralympics would have a profound impact on containing the virus.

He said he has accepted the fact that the global sporting event will go on.

Mikihito Tanaka, a professor at the Faculty of Political Science and Economics, Waseda University, who is a member of a group of experts that advises the health ministry on its handling of the pandemic, disagrees.

“If the Games were canceled or postponed, it would have sent a strong message to people,” Tanaka said, who also took aim at news organizations.

“The media urged people to be cautious about an explosion of infections during the Olympics. Yet, at the same time, they reported on Japanese athletes’ achievements at the Games and exhilarated the entire nation.”

Tanaka said much of the blame for the rise in infections lies with the media, politicians and experts, who failed to deliver a clear message to people.

“If they proceed with the Paralympics, they should not run away from the contradiction involved,” he asserted.

(This article was written by Daisuke Maeda, Yusuke Saito and Naoyuki Himeno.)