{"id":93768,"date":"2021-03-22T05:36:28","date_gmt":"2021-03-22T10:36:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/?p=93768"},"modified":"2021-03-22T05:36:53","modified_gmt":"2021-03-22T10:36:53","slug":"tokyo-olympics-organisers-bar-overseas-fans-to-stop-spread-of-coronavirus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/2021\/03\/22\/tokyo-olympics-organisers-bar-overseas-fans-to-stop-spread-of-coronavirus\/","title":{"rendered":"Tokyo Olympics organisers bar overseas fans to stop spread of coronavirus"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"RFI \u2014 Organisers of the Tokyo Olympics on Saturday confirmed overseas spectators will not be permitted to attend the event as part of the Japanese government\u2019s attempts to stem the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Speculation had been rife that fans travelling from abroad would not be welcomed into the country for the games which are scheduled to start on 23 July.<\/p>\n

Around 900,000 tickets for the Olympics and subsequent Paralympics will be refunded.<\/p>\n

The announcement came after a meeting of the International Olympic Committee (IOC),<\/a> International Paralympic Committee, <\/a>Tokyo metropolitan government, the Tokyo 2020 organising committee and the Japanese government.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Covid-19 situation in Japan and many other countries around the world is still very challenging and a number of variant strains have emerged,\u201d said a statement from all the groups which attended the meeting.<\/p>\n

\u201cBased on the present situation of the pandemic, it is highly unlikely that entry into Japan will be guaranteed this summer for people from overseas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Toll<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nearly 9,000 people have died from the disease in Japan since January 2020. The games – originally scheduled between 24 July and 9 August 2020 – were postponed<\/a> as the first wave of the illness took hold.<\/p>\n

The organisers said they had made the declaration on Saturday to give ticket holders time to rework their travel plans.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis conclusion will further contribute to ensure safe and secure Games for all participants and the Japanese public,\u201d the joint statement added.<\/p>\n

Regret<\/strong><\/p>\n

Thomas Bach,<\/a> the IOC president, said: \u201cWe share the disappointment of all enthusiastic Olympic fans from around the world, and of course the families and friends of the athletes who were planning to come to the games.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor this I am truly sorry. We know that this is a great sacrifice for everybody. We have said from the very beginning of this pandemic that it will require sacrifices.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we have also said that the first principle is safety. Every decision has to respect the principle of safety first.\u201d<\/p>\n

The move could reduce doubts and suspicion towards the games. Opinion polls have revealed high levels of local hostility towards the hosting of the games.<\/p>\n

Bach has insisted the 32nd Olympic Games\u00a0will not be postponed again.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI know that our Japanese partners and friends did not reach this conclusion lightly,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

“Together with them, the IOC\u2019s top priority was, is and remains to organise safe Olympic and Paralympic Games for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RFI \u2014 Organisers of the Tokyo Olympics on Saturday confirmed overseas spectators will not be permitted to attend the event as part of the Japanese government\u2019s attempts to stem the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. Speculation had been rife that fans travelling from abroad would not be welcomed into the country for the games which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":93769,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-recposts"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"en","enabled_languages":["fa","en"],"languages":{"fa":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93768"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93771,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93768\/revisions\/93771"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}