Intimidated – presumably – by the concept of exposing the unvaccinated to horrors of the worst medical epidemic to hit international sports since Bob Costas’ super knotty pink eye, the organizers of the Tokyo Olympics (still, challenging the powerful forces of the Great Calendar, being referred to as the “2020 Summer Games”) They announced that they will not allow international spectators to attend the event. The decision, announced this morning before July 23 kickoff of the Games, it should cost literally billions of dollars in international travel and tourism revenue, as well as refunds for the 600,000 tickets already sold to participants outside the country.
The Olympics – based, as they are, on putting thousands of people indoors so they can shout at each other while watching other people’s breath extremely difficult – it has always been, shall we say, risky as a perspective for the entertainment of the COVID era. The slow release of vaccines in Japan has not helped these prospects, and Deadline grades that a survey recently conducted in Japan was largely against holding the games this year. (It is difficult to blame them; if we lived on an already densely populated island, the idea of inviting countless hordes off bodies, and all those bodies’ microscopic passengers and killers, going out and spitting on things would probably be pretty scary too.)
The decision to bar international travelers was taken jointly between the Games organizers, the International Olympic Committee and the International Paralympic Committee, as well as with the local government and the Japanese government as a whole. (The Paralympic Games start in August and will face similar restrictions.)