Tokyo 2020 will tighten the Olympic Games arrival protocol after several injuries | Other sports | Sports

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The suggestion comes after two members of Uganda’s Olympic team tested positive for the virus once in the host country.

EFE

Tokyo 2020 organizers have proposed to the government to tighten Japan’s entry protocol to immediately isolate any Olympic delegation in which a positive virus is detected upon arrival.

The proposal, which was revealed on Sunday on a TV show by Tokyo 2020 chief executive, Hidemasa Nakamura, comes after two members of Uganda’s Olympic team tested positive for the virus once in the country and in the face of criticism raised by the case’s management.

One of the nine members of the delegation, a coach, tested positive upon arrival at Tokyo airport on the 19th and was immediately transferred to a government facility for this type of case. It was later confirmed that he had delta disease.

The rest of the delegation were allowed to take a private bus to Izumisano, in Osaka Prefecture (west), where their accommodation and training facilities were located until the start of the Games, and where an athlete later tested positive.

The case marks the first positive detection of the virus in the mandatory tests that all foreign participants in the Olympic Games must undergo. It was criticized that the team was not isolated from the start, at a time of concern about the risks involved in holding an event of this magnitude in a pandemic.

International federations were notified this Sunday that due to the occurrence of the new variables, participants from Afghanistan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka will have to undergo daily tests for seven days before traveling to Japan and participants from Bangladesh. Egypt, Malaysia, the United Kingdom and Vietnam for three.

Guidelines set by Games organizers require the isolation of close contacts of positive, which must be confirmed by the country’s health authorities, a process that in the case of the Osaka authorities took several days, making the Ugandan team’s bus trip possible. .

All of them, along with eight other people (including several Izumisano officials and motorists) were certified as close and later isolated connections.

Tokyo 2020 CEO Nakamura said today in a televised debate on public broadcaster NHK that they will “immediately” prepare a system to isolate and test any delegation seen in a similar situation, “even before a decision is made” on whether to consider the matter. close contacts.

Tokyo 2020 is considering close contact with “those who have been in prolonged contact (for 15 minutes or more) with a person who has been confirmed to have COVID-19, at a distance of one meter and without wearing a mask.” Health authorities evaluate who meets this definition after infection is discovered.

The Ugandan Olympic team was the second foreign delegation to arrive in Japan after the Australian women’s softball team for the games, which are set to open on July 23.

The entire team was vaccinated with two doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine and was certified negative for the virus 72 hours before the flight.

In addition, they underwent a double test for the virus after arriving on Japanese soil, in compliance with infection control measures imposed by the organizers, in which everything except the aforementioned coach tested negative. (I)

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