2020 Games: more tests, no quarantine in updated Tokyo Olympics rules
- Latest version of the athletes’ ‘Playbook’, which offers guidance to participants on their time in Japan for the Games, is to be released on Wednesday
The roll-out of the second edition of the “Playbook” – an IOC guidebook explaining how the games can be pulled off – comes as Tokyo, Osaka and several other areas have been placed under a third state of emergency as coronavirus cases surge.
Japan, which has attributed about 10,000 deaths to Covid-19, has also been slow with local vaccination with about 1 per cent so far getting shots.
Organisers are expected to announce daily testing for athletes. They are also expected to drop a 14-day quarantine requirement, allowing athletes to train when they arrive. Athletes will be required to stay within a “bubble” consisting of the Olympic Village on Tokyo Bay, and venues and training areas.
Japan’s Kyodo news agency, citing unnamed sources, said athletes and staff will have to be tested twice within 96 hours before leaving home. They will also be tested upon arrival in Japan.