news // no. 4

theotherpress.ca

Tokyo 2020: the stay-at-home Olympics?

> International fans not allowed at Summer Games

 

Jerrison Oracion
Senior Columnist

 

wee three months to go until
the Summer Olympic Games

in Tokyo begin, all of Japan can finally
celebrate their heritage and welcome
the rest of the world in a celebration of
sport. While the 2020 Tokyo Summer
Olympic Games could have still
happened on schedule last year, the
surge of cases during the early days of
the coronavirus pandemic led to the
games being delayed until this year.

When the number of cases went
down and gave hope that the pandemic
would end before the games began,
several more waves of the pandemic and
states of emergencies impacted their
permittance of international fans to the
event. The discussions on this decision
began in December 2020 just before
another state of emergency happened
in Japan and also during a rise of variant
COVID-19 cases.

For three months, the Tokyo
2020 Organizing Committee and the
Japanese government discussed the
next steps for the games; about 33
percent of the population said that the
games should be cancelled according
to a poll by NHK News. They reached
this conclusion while considering
the fact that many countries still
have travel restrictions; it is not seen
as practical to hold the games with
international spectators. On March
20, they presented their findings to the
Tokyo Metropolitan Government and

Illustration by Athena Little

Coronavirus vaccine update

» Is the vaccine rollout working?

Jerrison Oracion
Senior Columnist

 

Ba" of the number of vaccines that
are currently available, many think
there is a chance that the coronavirus
pandemic will end this summer as more
people get their first dose of the vaccine.
In Canada, the rollout of the coronavirus
vaccine is speeding up as more shipments
of the Pfizer vaccine arrive and the United
States loans leftovers of the AstraZeneca
vaccine. The Johnson and Johnson vaccine
yet to be delivered to the country but
there are production problems with the
vaccine that could lead to it being delayed,
as well as questions about the side effects
of the vaccines.

In British Columbia, we are now in
phase three where more age groups will
be able to book an appointment to get the
vaccine as well as more essential workers
including teachers and grocery workers
getting priority access to the vaccine.
For these individuals, they will get the
AstraZeneca vaccine which has been
involved in a lot of controversies. There was
mixed messaging that the vaccine should
not be given to anyone under 65 years due to
the risk of blood clots. This was caused by a
manufacturing error in one of the batches

that were distributed in Europe and did
not affect the shipments for Canada which
were made in a different factory in India.
Both Health Canada and the European
Union determined that the chance of
getting a blood clot from the vaccine is
rare and both organizations revised their
recommendations on the vaccine. However,
Health Canada had to revise it again after
the National Advisory Committee on
Immunization found out that the blood
clots can happen to anyone 55 years and
younger, especially with women.

When real world data was
incorporated, it revealed that the
AstraZeneca vaccine has a higher efficacy , "Sarr TARE
rate at 76 percent and this may encourage
more people to get the vaccine when it is
their turn. Currently, they are testing the
vaccine on children under 18 years old and
can even speed up the rollout process when
they are approved for children. There is
promising news from the clinical trials of
the Pfizer vaccine where children have an
efficacy rate of accurately 100 percent.

Also, the efficacy rate of the vaccine
was updated to g1 percent and discovered
that it has six months of protection after
the second dose. So far, the most common
side effect of the coronavirus vaccine is
swelling in the injection site which is
common with the flu shot.

These mishaps could slow down the
shipment of vaccines that are arriving in
the country, but when more vaccines are

IOC President Thomas Bach and it was
made official.

Residents in Japan will still be able
to go to events with safety precautions
in place while international fans will
have their ticket packages refunded.

The positive thing about this is that it
will allow more people to experience
events in person and residents in areas
surrounding Tokyo can get to the city and
back home via the train. The 2020 Tokyo
Summer Olympic Games is the first
Olympic Games to not have international
fans in the audience. It is very likely that
all the coverage of the games will be
filmed at home which in this case would
be filmed at CBC Studios in Toronto but
might have reporters on location in cases
someone gets a medal.

When organizing committee
President Seiko Hashimoto was
commenting on the news, she described
it as athletes giving “their utmost and
inspire the world with transcendent
performances.” Athletes, staff, and
visitors must follow guidelines that
were made by the organizing committee
during their stay in the city to prevent
an outbreak from happening in the
city. During the Tokyo 2020 Torch Relay
which is currently underway, spectators
should not form crowds along the relay
route though there were kind of large
crowds but still doing social distancing.

The Summer Olympic Games
in Tokyo are not going to be like
every other Olympic Games, but the
excitement of the Olympic spirit will
still be seen at home.

approved and the current vaccine problems
are resolved, we could be on track for the
pandemic to possibly end soon.

  

Photo by Arnaldo Fragozo

There is promising news from the clinical
trials of the Pfizer vaccine where children have
an efficacy rate of accurately 100 percent.