OpinionPushing ahead with Tokyo 2020 is right move as world looks to move on from coronavirus
- IOC vice-president John Coates shoots from the hip and declares the Games will go on ‘with or without Covid’
- Pandemic fatigue has become a real issue as 2020 drags on, so why not look forward to a 2021 Olympics?
The International Olympic Committee’s vice-president John Coates delivered the most definitive statement on Tokyo 2020 since it was postponed by one year in March.
“With or without Covid,” he declared. “Now very much these will be the Games that conquered Covid, the light at the end of the tunnel.”
Coates’ statement comes as the world stands on the precipice. Fatigue has clearly set in, no longer just fears surrounding the actual virus, but the restrictions we have all endured for months. For many, returning to our normal lives is now the number one priority.
Scientists and researchers will spend years, maybe even decades studying not only the impact this virus had on the global population, but the unprecedented social experiment that accompanied it: a mass populace told to stay at home, work remotely, limit movement and try to wait out the pandemic.
The lives lost and the economic damage will linger and we may simply never return to the global financial state of 2019, but as always, life needs to find a way to move on.