North Korea has become the first major nation to leave the Tokyo Olympics to protect itself from the coronavirus pandemic. The decision was taken at a meeting of the North Korean Olympic Committee, which said in a statement that it would not participate in the Games – due to start on July 23 – to “protect athletes from the global health crisis caused by the coronavirus. ”Officially, North Korea has registered no cases of coronavirus, although this seems totally unlikely. It will be the first summer Olympics that North Korea has lost since 1988, when it was left out of the Games in Seoul. The Olympics are extremely unpopular in Japan, where some research suggests that up to 80% of people want the Games to be canceled or postponed again. Japanese health officials have expressed concern that variants of the coronavirus are causing what could soon become the fourth wave of the pandemic.
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