Tokyo has shown the pandemic can be beaten, Games health adviser says

Aug 7, 2021 12:46 PM PHT

Reuters

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Tokyo has shown the pandemic can be beaten, Games health adviser says

TOKYO GAMES. A woman takes a photo of a Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games monument near Enoshima Yacht Harbor, the sailing competition venue for the games, which have been postponed to 2021 due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, in Fujisawa, Kanagawa prefecture, Japan July 14, 2021.

Naoki Ogura/Reuters

'We have shown it is possible to keep a pandemic at bay and that is a very important lesson from Tokyo to the rest of the world,' says Brian McCloskey, chair of the Game's Independent Expert Panel

A leading Olympic Games health adviser said on Saturday, August 7, that Tokyo 2020 had shown that the COVID-19 pandemic could be beaten and would provide data to help countries around the world battle the coronavirus.

The Olympics in Tokyo had shown that measures such as social distancing, mask wearing, hand sanitising along with testing and tracing worked when implemented as a package, Brian McCloskey, the chair of the Game’s Independent Expert Panel, said at a press briefing.

“We have shown it is possible to keep a pandemic at bay and that is a very important lesson from Tokyo to the rest of the world,” he said.

The Tokyo 2020 organizer earlier said that it had recorded 404 Games-related COVID-19 cases since July 1.

Health data collected during the two weeks of the Games, including inside the athletes village, would be analyzed and published so countries could use it to help plan their responses to the coronavirus, McCloskey said. – Rappler.com