IOC president: ‘Zero’ risk of Olympics participants infecting Japanese residents

The president of the International Olympic Committee said on Thursday that there is “zero” risk that Japanese residents would be infected with COVID-19 by those participating in the Tokyo Olympics, Reuters reported. 

IOC President Thomas Bach noted that out of the more than 8,000 COVID-19 tests that athletes and delegations have undergone, only three came back positive, the news outlet reported.

The COVID-19 Olympic participants had been isolated and any close contacts identified were quarantined, Bach said during talks with Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee President Seiko Hashimoto and Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike.

“Risk for the other residents of Olympic village and risk for the Japanese people is zero,” Bach said, though the number of COVID-19 cases in the city have continued to trend upward in recent days.

On Wednesday, Tokyo reported 1,308 cases of COVID-19, a six-month high for the city, and it reported 1,149 cases on Tuesday. Though Tokyo has occasionally seen over a thousand COVID-19 cases in April and May, the last time the city saw more COVID-19 cases than Wednesday’s total was in late January.

Tokyo entered a fourth state of emergency on Monday, which will force bars and restaurants to close earlier and prohibit sales of alcohol through the Olympics, The Associated Press reported.

The Olympics are set to start on July 23.