Tokyo Olympics: coronavirus largely contained among athletes, as cases surge in Japan
- Only 24 athletes are among the 276 Covid-19 cases linked to the 2020 Olympic Games, while the broader Tokyo population has seen a surge in cases
- Elsewhere, Australian troops hit Sydney’s streets to help enforce its prolonged lockdown and virus hotspot Indonesia said its wave is subsiding
To date, organisers have announced 276 positive cases among people connected to the Olympics, including 24 athletes out of the more than 11,000 who are expected to participate. Of over 400,000 tests conducted so far on athletes and stakeholders, the positivity rate has been only 0.02 per cent, organisers said on Monday.
“There is a separation between the athletes and the various stakeholders, and the general population,” Mark Adams, International Olympic Committee spokesperson, told reporters. “You can’t reduce the risk to zero, but we have with the playbooks pretty well covered the ability to reduce that risk as far as we can.”
The so-called playbooks set out Covid-prevention measures and rules for each Olympics participant including athletes, officials and media.
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While athletes in the Olympic Village are required to test daily, requirements are less strict for volunteers who have less contact with athletes. The rules are also harsher for those flying in from overseas, compared to Japanese residents.
The Olympics-related numbers contrast with the surge in the broader Tokyo area, where daily Covid-19 case counts jumped to a record 4,058 cases on Saturday. Another 2,195 new cases were found on Monday. The capital’s seven-day rolling average of cases has risen to a record 3,214.4 per day, up 106.9 per cent from the previous week.
Japan reported 8,393 new coronavirus cases on Monday, almost double the figure confirmed the same day in the previous week.
Last week, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga expanded the state of emergency to areas surrounding Tokyo and extended it to the end of August, in a bid to contain the latest wave of infections ahead of general elections that must be called by autumn.
Before the Games began, local opinion on the Olympics was hotly divided, with polls suggesting most people did not think the event could be held safely.
Hiroshi Nishiura, a professor and epidemiologist at Kyoto University, called on Twitter for the Olympics to be stopped a day after the opening ceremony, predicting that the situation will worsen for hospitals taking in Covid-19 patients after hearing that capacity was already beginning to be breached.
While concerns and divisions remain, for now some social media analysis is showing the public mood appears to be shifting following Japan’s gold medal haul.
The virus positivity rate has also been surging for tests being conducted in the capital, nearly quadrupling from July 1. While far more of those being infected are younger people, following the country’s drive to get the elderly vaccinated first, the number of those in serious condition has also been rising. In July, the number of people hospitalised roughly doubled to over 3,000 by the end of the month.
Troops enforce Sydney lockdown
About 300 Australian Defence Force personnel will be deployed to the country’s largest city after New South Wales state police requested military help to enforce Covid-19 rules.
Authorities have been struggling to stop the spread of the highly infectious Delta variant in Sydney – and ensure that residents follow containment rules – with more than 3,600 cases recorded since mid-June.
With thousands of close contacts of Covid cases told to test and stay at home for 14 days, police said they lacked the manpower to make sure everyone was complying. Troops are expected to help police deliver food parcels, conduct “welfare door-knocks” and check people are complying with self-isolation orders.
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“I want to stress up front again that we will be under control of the NSW police,” said Brigadier Mick Garraway. “We are not a law enforcement agency and we will do tasks that are supportive in nature.”
More than 5 million people in Sydney and surrounding areas are entering their sixth week of a lockdown set to run until the end of August. Residents are only allowed to leave their homes for exercise, essential work, medical reasons, and to shop for necessities such as food. But compliance has been patchy and police have increasingly been doling out fines to those violating the restrictions.
The defence force said the latest deployment was in addition to the 250 military personnel already working at hotels and airports in New South Wales.
In Brisbane and several surrounding regions, millions of people will remain under lockdown until Sunday after an “escalating” outbreak grew to 29 cases. Those stay-at-home orders had been scheduled to lift on Tuesday.
“That will make it an eight-day lockdown. And we desperately hope that that will be sufficient for our contact tracers to get into home quarantine absolutely anyone who could have been exposed to the Delta strain,” acting Queensland state premier Steven Miles said.
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The outbreak was linked to a Brisbane school student, with pupils and teachers at several schools subsequently placed into isolation.
Defence Minister Peter Dutton’s sons attend one of the schools hit, so he is among those being forced to quarantine at home for 14 days. “Having had Covid and being fully vaccinated, I have also tested negative this morning,” he said in a statement.
With about 15 per cent of Australia’s 25 million people fully vaccinated, authorities are still relying on lockdowns to slow the spread of the virus.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has outlined a long road out of restrictions – setting a target of 80 per cent of the eligible population to be fully vaccinated before borders are reopened and lockdowns eliminated.
Australia has recorded more than 34,000 cases and 925 deaths so far during the pandemic.
Indonesia says peak has passed
Indonesia has passed the peak of the latest Covid-19 wave and started to see improvements, the country’s health minister said on Monday.
Indonesia imposed a partial lockdown on July 9 amid record coronavirus infections on Java and Bali islands, where more than 50 per cent of Indonesia’s 270 million people live.
The measure is due to expire on Monday but the government has not announced whether it will be extended.
“We can see that we have passed the peak, especially in Java and Bali,” Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said.
“We are seeing improvements,” he said, citing declining bed occupancy rates in hospitals. “I know it’s not 100 per cent and we need to continue to be vigilant, but this is something to be grateful about.”
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Indonesia recorded 22,404 Covid-19 cases over the past 24 hours, taking the total number of confirmed infections to nearly 3.5 million, according to the ministry. Another 1,568 fatalities overnight brought the virus-related death toll to 97,291.
At its peak in mid-July, the country’s Covid-19 daily caseload reached an average 50,000, dominated by the highly contagious Delta variant.
So far, over 47.6 million Indonesians have been vaccinated, mostly using the jab developed by China’s Sinovac, but only 20.9 million have received a second dose. Indonesia has set the target of inoculating 208 million people by early next year in a bid to achieve herd immunity.
Thailand steps up home isolation
Earlier in the pandemic, all Covid-19 patients in Thailand were admitted to hospitals, but last month authorities introduced home isolation for more than 30,000 people with minor or no symptoms for Bangkok and surrounding provinces.
“There are currently 60,000 patients in home isolation and we expect to expand that capacity to 100,000,” health official Natthapong Wongwiwat, told a news briefing.
Patients isolating at home will receive medical equipment, medicine, meals, and phone consultations with doctors, he said. “If their conditions worsen, they will be transferred to a field hospital or hospital.”
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A surge in cases driven by the Delta variant has been rattling Asia, including in countries like Thailand and Vietnam which had been relatively successful at containing the virus. The highly transmissible variant was behind an increase in coronavirus cases in Thailand last month. The current outbreak began in April and is the country’s worst since the pandemic began.
On Sunday, authorities in Bangkok extended tight restrictions in the capital, where 90 per cent of the 40,000 hospital beds were occupied as of Monday, permanent health secretary Kiatiphum Wongrajit said at a separate briefing. Nationwide, 80 per cent of Thailand’s 175,000 hospital beds were occupied, he added.
The Southeast Asian country’s coronavirus task force on Monday reported 17,970 new cases, bringing its total caseload to 633,284 infections, with 5,074 deaths. The jump in infections has increased pressure on the government to boost its sluggish pace of vaccinations, with only around 6 per cent of Thailand’s more than 66 million people fully vaccinated.
Singapore reports 106 new cases
Singapore authorities found 106 new cases of locally-spread coronavirus cases, the government said. Some 25 of the cases were unlinked, the Health Ministry said in statement on Monday. Of the total, seven cases were individuals above 70 years old who are not vaccinated or partially vaccinated. There were five imported cases.
Daily virus case counts have stayed well above 100 since July 19, after an outbreak at a fishery port in west Singapore spread across the rest of the island with clusters emerging at karaoke lounges and food markets to a primary school and hospital.
While Singapore’s virus tallies are a fraction of the thousands of the cases found in neighbouring Indonesia and Malaysia, government officials reimposed tighter Covid-19 restrictions last month to prevent hospitals from getting overwhelmed.
Philippines extends night curfew
The Philippines will extend a night curfew in the capital, Manila, amid a tightening of curbs in the Southeast Asian country to combat a potential surge in cases of the Delta variant of Covid-19, a government official said on Monday.
Metropolitan Manila, already subject to an six hour curfew from 10pm, will bring forward that curfew by two hours to 8pm, said Benjamin Abalos, chair of the region’s governing body. “We are only asking for two weeks. This will stop the virus for the meantime. What’s important is our hospitals don’t get full,” Abalos told a briefing.
Philippines returns 13 million residents to lockdown to curb Delta variant
Authorities have deployed police personnel to quarantine checkpoints in Metropolitan Manila, where inbound and outbound travel will be restricted. The region, home to more than 13 million people, will be placed under strict lockdown from August 6 to 20, Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said on Friday.
Covid-19 cases in the Philippines exceeded 8,000 a day from Friday to Monday. Sunday’s recorded tally of 8,735 infections was the highest since May 28.
Reporting by Bloomberg, Kyodo, Agence France-Presse, Reuters, DPA
