Japan’s government is to declare a state of emergency in Tokyo that will be in force during the Olympics, as the capital battles a sharp rise in coronavirus infections.
The measure, expected to be made official by the prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, later on Thursday, increases the likelihood that the Games will be held without a single spectator.
The latest blow to Japan’s troubled Olympic preparations comes after Tokyo reported 920 new infections on Wednesday. That compares with 714 last Wednesday and is the highest total since 1,010 were reported on 13 May.
The economy minister, Yasutoshi Nishimura, who heads the government’s coronavirus response, said Tokyo’s fourth state of emergency would begin on 12 July – 11 days before the Games open – and end on 22 August, two days before the start of the Paralympics.
Weeks of quasi-emergency measures targeting Tokyo’s night-time economy have failed to prevent the latest wave of cases. The government is expected to reimpose an unpopular ban on serving alcohol at bars and restaurants, Japanese media reported.
The emergency declaration in Tokyo – the centre of Japan’s outbreak for much of the pandemic – is an embarrassment for Suga, whose handling of the crisis saw his party perform badly in Tokyo metropolitan assembly elections last weekend.
“Politically speaking, having no spectators is now unavoidable,” a ruling party source told Reuters.
Suga’s insistence that organisers and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) will be able to stage a “safe and secure” Olympics even as cases rise in the host city could further anger voters just a few months out from a general election.
The IOC and the Tokyo 2020 organising committee said last month that attendances would be capped at 50% of a venue’s capacity, or a maximum of 10,000 people.