11,000 Athletes, No Outbreak: How the Tokyo Olympics Dodged COVID
Posted on AllSides August 13th, 2021
From The Left
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ANALYSIS
Before thousands of international athletes and reporters even landed in Tokyo, the Olympics were seen as a horror story waiting to happen.
What’s essential in a mega sporting event—confined spaces, crowds and close contacts—also makes fertile ground for COVID-19. Apprehensive and alarmed, the Japanese public overwhelmingly opposed hosting the Tokyo Games. When the time came, everyone bit their fingernails, bracing for headlines of a mass outbreak in the Olympic Village, or even worse, an Olympic variant.
But as some 11,000 Olympic athletes packed up after two weeks of competitions, organizers breathed a sigh of relief that their...