Japanese COVID curbs delay decision on allowing local audience at Olympics venues

Tokyo: The decision on how many local fans will be allowed into Olympic venues will be made next month, informed the Tokyo Olympics organising committee chief Seiko Hashimoto on Friday. Meanwhile, Japanese Prime Minister, Yoshihide Suga has officially extended the state of emergency over Covid-19 in Tokyo and other eight prefectures by three weeks to June 20.

Just hours before Suga made the announcement, Hashimoto told reporters at a press conference that "the decision should be made as soon as possible, but after the state of emergency is lifted, we will assess."

She added, "what is important is to provide medical and scientific evidence for the games to be safe and secure, so we will ask for information from (people of) those fields and sufficiently draw a conclusion."

Overseas spectators will be banned from entering Japan for the Games and the decision on how many local fans will be allowed to watch the competition was originally scheduled to be made at the end of April.

But with Tokyo entering a state of emergency from April 25, the organisers were forced to postpone the decision until June.

The Japanese government and the organisers are under mounting pressure from an increasing number of medical experts and Japanese people to call off the Olympics.