Over 60 pc of Japanese companies against holding Tokyo Olympic Games – Reports

An online survey conducted by the Tokyo Shoko Research saw over 60 per cent of Japan’s companies admit that they were skeptical towards the holding of the Tokyo Olympic Games this summer amid the country’s low COVID-19 vaccination rates, the Kyodo News Agency reported on Saturday.
The survey was carried out from June 1 to 9 and saw 34.7% of participants say that they preferred for the Games to be canceled, while 29.3% admitted that they wanted the Games to be postponed.
Over 76% of firms said that the reason why they were against the holding of the Games at this stage, was due to the low vaccination rates in the country with 75.7% of participants saying that the arrival of foreign athletes and Olympic Games personnel could worsen the pandemic situation in the country.
In addition, 58.8% of respondents said that the cancellation or postponing of the Games would have a “large negative impact” on the business while 41.2% disagreed.
Moreover, over 60% of the surveyed firms said that they believe diverting the attention of medical workers onto the event could cause a strain on Japan’s general healthcare system.
Despite such large numbers of firms disagreeing with the holding of the Olympic Games, 36% of surveyed participants said that they wanted the event to be held as scheduled.
On Friday, the organizing committee of the Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo has decided to further limit the number of officials from overseas accompanying athletes, to 41,000, which is one-third of the initial number.
The Summer Olympics in Tokyo, initially scheduled for 2020, were postponed by a year over the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. The Games are currently due to take place from July 23 to August 8. The event will be held without spectators from overseas, while the decision on domestic spectators is expected later in June.

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